Document E0BNrJD2Q0y7Y9eLg0p3aZpL

1 IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF BRAZORIA COUNTY, TEXAS 2 239TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT 3 ---000--4 MANDY STAPLES, as mother and next friend of JONATHAN STAPLES (age 10), 5 JUSTIN STAPLES (age 8); and SHELBY STAPLES (AGE 5); CHRISTINA CARL, aunt 6 and guardian of the person and estate of CARLIN DAVID STAPLES, JR., (age 16); 7 and ROBERT STAPLES, as uncle and next NO. 13798*JG00 friend of JESSE STAPLES (age 13) 8 vs. 9 SHINTECH INCORPORATED 10 11 12 13 14 DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG 15 MARCH 13, 2002 16 Volume II 17 (Pages 262 - 355) 18 19 Taken before KAREN E. THOMPSON 20 CSR No. 2792 21 22 23 JANE GROSSMAN REPORTING SERVICES Certified Shorthand Reporters 24 3756 Grand Avenue, No. 406 Oakland, California 94610 25 (510) 653-2579 DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 262 1INDEX 2 3 DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG 4 MARCH 13, 2002 5 VOLUME II PAGE 6 EXAMINATION BY: Mr. Stewart, Continued 268 7 Mr. Colbert 340 8 9EXHIBITS (Continued) 10 PLAINTIFFS' PAGE 11 PX 12 Environmental Health Perspectives, 1981, 268 12 "Epidemiologic Study of Vinyl Chloride Workers: Mortality through December 31, 13 1972,11 by W. Clark Cooper, 6 pages, no Bates numbers 14 PX 13 June 8, 1982 letter from Carol R. Stack, 290 15 Vinyl Chloride Program, CMA, to G.E. Disch, Tenneco Chemicals, 2 pages, 16 no Bates numbers 17 PX 14 8 July 1982 letter from Otto Wong to 294 Ralph Ferrel, Conoco, 2 pages, 18 no Bates numbers 19 PX 15 CMA Vinyl Chloride Study Status Report 272 Table 1, "Exposure Reclassification 20 [20 May 1985)" and Table 2, "Initial Study Deceased [20 May 1985]," 21 2 pages, no Bates numbers 22 PX 16 "A Proposal for the Update of the 269 Epidemiological Study of Vinyl Chloride 23 Workers," prepared for the Chemical Manufacturers Association by Environmental 24 Health Associates, Third Revision, September 31 (sic), 1981, 21 pages, 25 no Bates numbers DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 263 1 EXHIBITS 2 (Continued) 3 PLAINTIFFS' PAGE 4 PX 17 "Proposal for the Performance of Phase I 273 5 of a Five-Year Follow-up of an Epidemiological Study of Vinyl Chloride 6 Workers," 4 pages, no Bates numbers 7 PX 18 May 15, 1979 letter to T. R. Torkelson, 278 MCA Vinyl Chloride Research Coordinators, 8 from Richard L. Davis, Environmental Health Associates, 4 pages, 9 no Bates numbers 10 PX 19 Record of Meeting of Vinyl Chloride 282 Research Coordinator Group of Vinyl 11 Chloride Program Panel, November 8, 1985, 23 pages, no Bates numbers 12 PX 20 Bimonthly Progress Report, Vinyl Chloride 286 13 Epidemiologic Study, Phase I, May 18, 1982, 6 pages, no Bates numbers 14 PX 21 March 11, 1982 letter from Carol R. Stack 289 15 to Otto Wong; Environmental Health Associates July 26, 1982 invoice, 16 2 pages, no Bates numbers 17 PX 22 March 13, 1979 Interoffice Memorandum 296 To: For the Record, From: Gordon S. 18 Siegal, M.D., 1 page, no Bates number 19 PX 23 August 17, 1982 letter to Susan G. Austin 301 of Union Carbide from Otto Wong of 20 EHA, 1 page, no Bates number 21 PX 24 January 21, 1983 letter to Otto Wong 303 from A. Robert Schnatter of Union Carbide, 22 1 page, no Bates number 23 24 25 DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 264 1EXHIBITS 2 (Continued) 3 PLAINTIFFS' PAGE 4 PX 25 Report, "Epidemiological Investigation 311 of the Polyvinyl Chloride Industry in 5 Reference to Occupational Acroosteolysis," by The Institute of Industrial Health, 6 University of Michigan, February 1969, Confidential report to the Medical 7 Advisory Committee, Manufacturing Chemists Association, 116 pages, 8 Bates Nos. BA 000061 - BA 000068 and BA 000070 - BA 000176 9 PX 26 Advance copy of a publication prepared 317 10 for the Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe, June 1986, 11 "Vinyl Chloride Carcinogenicity: Available Scientific Evidence and Control Measures," 12 by Pr. Cesare Maltoni, 48 pages, no Bates numbers 13 14 DEFENDANT'S EXHIBITS 15 2A Photocopy of cover, American Journal of 354 16 Industrial Medicine, Volume 20, No. 3, 1991, 1 page, no Bates number 17 6A Photocopy of cover, American Journal of 354 18 Industrial Medicine, Volume 24, No. 2, 1993, 1 page, no Bates number 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 265 1 DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG 2 3 BE IT REMEMBERED that, on Wednesday, 4 March 13, 2002, commencing at the hour of 8:00 a.m., at 5 the Law Offices of BROBECK, PHLEGER & HARRISON, One 6 Market, Spear Street Tower, San Francisco, California, 7 pursuant to notice and continued from March 12, 2002, 8 before me, KAREN E. THOMPSON, a Certified Shorthand 9 Reporter of the State of California, personally appeared 10 OTTO WONG, produced as a witness in said action, and 11 being by me previously sworn, was thereupon further 12 examined as a witness in said cause. 13 ---000--14 15 A P P E A R A N C E S 16 VAUGHAN O. STEWART, Attorney at Law, of the 17 Law Offices of VAUGHAN O. STEWART, 115 N. Dixie Drive, 18 No. 500, Lake Jackson, Texas 77566, was present on 19 behalf of the plaintiffs. 20 LESLIE M. STEWART, Attorney at Law, of the 21 Law Offices of TOMBLIN CARNES McCORMACK, LLP, 210 Barton 22 Springs Road, Suite 550, Austin, Texas 78704, was 23 present on behalf of the plaintiffs. 24 KEVIN L. COLBERT, Attorney at Law, of the Law 25 Offices of GARDERE WYNNE SEWELL, LLP, 1000 Louisiana, DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 266 1APPEARANCES 2 (Continued) 3 4 Suite 3400, Houston, Texas 77002-5007, was present on 5 behalf of the defendant. 6 7 STEVEN E. MARQUES, Videographer, of DAN 8 MOTTAZ VIDEO PRODUCTIONS, LLC, 402 Dewey Boulevard, 9 San Francisco, California 94116, was present videotaping 10 the proceedings 11 ---000--12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 267 1 PROCEEDINGS 8:01 A.M. 2 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: This marks the beginning of 3 Volume 2, Tape 1, in the deposition of Dr. Otto Wong in 4 the matter of Mandy Staples, et al., versus Shintech, 5 et al. Today's date is March 13, 2002. All other 6 aspects from Tape 1 remain the same. 7 The time is 8:01. We're on the record. 8 OTTO WONG, 9 having been previously sworn as a witness by 10 the Certified Shorthand Reporter, 11 testified as follows: 12 EXAMINATION BY MR. STEWART (CONTINUED) 13 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 12 14 was marked for identification.) 15 MR. STEWART: Q. Dr. Wong, I'm going to hand 16 you what's identified as Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 12 and 17 ask you if this appears to be a copy of Clark Cooper's 18 paper of 1981. 19 A. Yes, it is. 20 Q. Okay. I just wanted to get that into the 21 record. I don't have any questions about it. 22 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Can we go off the record for 23 just one second? Time is 8:02. We're off the record. 24 (Discussion off the record.) 25 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Time is 8:03. We're on the DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 268 1 record. 2 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 16 3 was marked for identification.) 4 MR. STEWART: Q. I realize that I'm skipping 5 numbers with my exhibits, but I'll go back and pick up 6 the others. 7 I'm now handing you what's identified as Wong 8 Exhibit No. 16 and ask you to tell me what that is, 9 please, sir. 10 A. It is a proposal for the update of the 11 epidemiologic study of vinyl chloride workers. 12 Q. It's probably made by EHA, the company that you 13 were working with at the time this proposal was drafted? 14 A. Just the time when I just joined EHA, right. 15 Q. And is this proposal something that you and 16 your colleagues submitted to the Chemical Manufacturers 17 Association in response for their call for proposals 18 from several different epidemiological firms? 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. I don't want to go over the proposal sentence 21 by sentence, but generally speaking, what is described 22 in this proposal? Do you tell CMA how you plan to go 23 about conducting your epidemiological study? 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. And do you make reference to the fact that this DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 269 1 is a follow-up study of the prior Cooper study? 2 A. Yes. It was an update of a previous study. 3 Q. Now, I notice on page 7 of this document, at 4 the very top, the first sentence is numbered 2: 5 "Provide full information (on new forms) for all 6 individuals who should have been included in the cohort, 7 but were not." 8 Then out beside it, it's got the word "delete." 9 Do you know if that was written by somebody 10 within your company or somebody within the Chemical 11 Manufacturers Association? 12 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 13 THE WITNESS: I do not know. I don't recognize 14 the handwriting. 15 MR. STEWART: Q. Now, on page 13, "Task 7, 16 Distribute Study Forms to Plants." 17 Do you see that? 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. In -- and this Task 7, you're telling the 20 Chemical Manufacturers Association that it's the 21 intention of your company to distribute study forms for 22 all individuals included in the cohort from each plant, 23 and will be reviewed by the plants and sorted into four 24 groups, and then you list those four groups, do you not? 25 A. Yes, that's -- that would be one of the sources DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 270 1 of vital -- vital status information that we tried to 2 obtain in that study. 3 Q. All right. There's nothing in here that 4 mentions 1942, is there? 5 A. No. 6 Q. And on page 17, the -- the project staff is 7 identified, and Donald Whorton was to be the project 8 director and principal investigator? 9 A. Right. 10 Q. All right. Apparently, W. Clark Cooper, who 11 had done the previous study, was going to be working 12 with you to some extent on your study? 13 A. Yes. 14 Q. And the person who was going to be in charge of 15 the finances and budget and so forth was Mr. -16 Mr. Davis, Richard L. Davis? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. Is Mr. Davis an epidemiologist, or is he an 19 accounting-type person, or do you know what his 20 educational background is? 21 A. He was not a technical person. He was a 22 business person. 23 Q. Okay. And then it mentions the "Supervision of 24 the data collection, coding and keytaping will be the 25 responsibility of Kathleen Claxton," and DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 271 1 "computerization of the data base and data analysis will 2 be the responsibility 6f Otto Wong." 3 Is that accurate? 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. And then, the "...biostatistical aspects of the 6 project will be performed by Dr. Wong and Ms. Jane 7 Schulman." 8 What is Ms. Jane Schulman's educational 9 background? 10 A. She was working as a programmer for us at that 11 time. 12 Q. Was she a college graduate? 13 A. Oh, yes. Yes. 14 Q. Do you know what her degree was in? 15 A. I believe she has a master degree in public 16 health. 17 Q. In public health? 18 A. Yes. 19 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 15 20 was marked for identification.) 21 MR. STEWART: Q. Let me hand you what's 22 identified as Wong Exhibit No. 15 and ask you to tell me 23 what that is, please, sir. 24 A. It appears to be a table attached to a status 25 report dated 1985, looks like. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 272 1 Q. What's listed in that table? 2 A. All the locations in the -- in the study. 3 Q. All of the plants that were involved in the 4 study? 5 A. Yes. 6 Q. Did you ever visit any of those plants? 7 A. No, I did not. 8 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 17 9 was marked for identification.) 10 MR. STEWART: Q. Now I'm handing you what's 11 identified as Wong Exhibit No. 17 and ask you to tell me 12 what that is, please, sir. 13 A. It appears to be a proposal for Mr. Davis to go 14 to Rockville, Maryland, to look at some old records from 15 the previous study, to determine -- I guess to get some 16 information to determine how much it would take to go 17 over the old records in order to perform the update. 18 Q. Okay. This Mr. Davis is the same R.L. Davis 19 that we just talked about who was in charge of budget 20 and financing for EHA? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. Okay. What records were in Rockville, 23 Maryland? 24 A. I believe the data on the study subjects in the 25 Cooper study were still in some place here in Rockville, DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 273 1 Maryland. 2 Q. Is that where Clark Cooper's office was at the 3 time he did his study? 4 A. No. The data -- actually, at that time, the 5 analysis was conducted by Equitable Environmental Health 6 Associates. 7 Q. You used to work for them? 8 A. I used to work for them, yes. 9 Q. Okay. 10 A. And they were located in Rockville, Maryland. 11 Q. Okay. So, back when Clark Cooper was doing his 12 study, he had gathered some records and sent them to 13 equitable in Rockville, Maryland. Equitable had done 14 some analyses of these records and reported their 15 results back to Clark Cooper? 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. And Equitable had kept the records in Rockville 18 and put them in storage? 19 A. Right. 20 Q. Okay. On page 2, where it's talking about 21 Task 2, I can read the words, but I'm not -- I don't 22 follow what it -- what it means. Tell me -- "...EHA's 23 Berkeley office" -- "Upon return to EHA's Berkeley 24 office, Mr. Davis will review his findings with W. Clark 25 Cooper and Thomas H. Milby, M.D." DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 274 1 Review what findings? 2 A. Well, in order to perform the update, we need 3 to find out the status of the records. We need to look 4 at the data from the previous study in order to do the 5 update. If they're well organized, it makes our job 6 much easier. If they are not organized, well, then, it 7 takes more time. The whole purpose is to determine how 8 much effort had to go into looking at the data, 9 preparing the data for an update. 10 Q. Okay. Is Clark Cooper a medical doctor? 11 A. Clark Cooper, yes. It says M.D. after his 12 name. 13 Q. Yeah, I knew that it did, but I didn't know if 14 that was an error. 15 Is there any particular reason why the data was 16 going to -- that Mr. Davis went and got at Rockville and 17 brought back to Berkeley was going to be reviewed by two 18 gentlemen, Dr. Cooper and Dr. Milby, both of whom are 19 medical doctors as opposed to being biostatisticians? 20 A. There's no particular reason. The reason 21 Dr. Cooper was involved, because that was his study. 22 Q. Right. 23 A. We update his study, so obviously, we need to 24 talk to him about his data. That's obvious. 25 Dr. Milby, he was the president of DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 275 1 Environmental Health Associates at that time, and he was 2 the one who was identified as the -- I guess the officer 3 or the key person at Environmental Health Associates 4 when the proposal was made to CMA. 5 Q. All right. Under Task 2, down under No. 2, 6 there's a mention of "to identify and analyze for PVC 7 dust and ethylene dichloride exposure or restrict 8 analysis to vinyl chloride exposure." 9 Was the study protocol limited to analysis to 10 vinyl chloride exposure? 11 A. Yes, the analysis was limited to vinyl 12 chloride. 13 Q. Okay. So, EHA did not undertake an analysis 14 to -- or undertake an effort to identify and analyze for 15 PVC dust and ethylene dichloride? 16 A. Well, that was under consideration, but that 17 was not -- I don't -- I don't know what happened to that 18 proposal, okay? That proposal was to -- should we look 19 at other substances besides vinyl chloride at those 20 locations, and I don't know what happened to -- whether 21 we don't have enough records to identify people exposed 22 to vinyl chloride as opposed to exposed to other 23 chemicals or, because of the budget, it was not 24 accepted. I don't know. I did not prepare this 25 document. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 276 1 Q. All right. Can you tell me why it was even 2 being considered to perhaps identify and analyze for PVC 3 dust? 4 A. Well, because vinyl chloride was the focus of 5 the investigation, and they would like to look at PVC 6 dust. 7 Q. All right. This has nothing to do with the 8 specific question of whether or not inhalation of PVC 9 dust is related to pulmonary disorders? 10 A. I don't know the rationale for that, but PVC 11 dust is an obvious exposure variable to look at. 12 Q. And do you know why it might have -- might have 13 been considered by your company to identify and analyze 14 for ethylene dichloride exposure? 15 A. I think I answered your question before, and 16 that is, in addition to vinyl chloride exposure, there 17 were other chemicals in many of those locations. And 18 ethylene dichloride was one of the other exposures. I 19 don't understand why that was singled out. I didn't 20 prepare the document. But I assume it's -- it was one 21 of the other exposures, and people may be interested in 22 that. 23 Q. Are you aware that the most -- well, one of the 24 methods for manufacturing vinyl chloride monomer is to 25 heat ethylene dichloride up above 700 degrees Fahrenheit DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 277 1 and break out the vinyl chloride monomer from the 2 ethylene dichloride? 3 A. I don't know the industrial process. 4 Q. Okay. 5 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit 18 was 6 marked for identification.) 7 MR. STEWART: Q. I'm now handing you what's 8 identified as PX 18. Can you tell me what that is, 9 please, sir. 10 I've just got two. I'm sorry, I've got three. 11 A. It's a letter from Mr. Davis to Torkelson, who 12 was the chairman of the CMA Vinyl Chloride Program at 13 that time. The letter was dated May 15, 1979. 14 Q. Okay. On page 2 of Mr. Davis's letter, right 15 in the very middle of the page, Mr. Davis says: 16 "Before discussing proposal details, let me 17 review some of the imponderables which 18 mitigate against preparation of a 19 definitive study proposal at this time." 20 Do you see that sentence? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. Can you tell me what a definitive study 23 proposal is, as opposed to some other type of study 24 proposal? 25 A. I assume at that time Mr. Davis did not have a DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 278 1 good knowledge of all the data, the underlying data, 2 what kind of status the data were in, the records were 3 in, in order to prepare a definitive proposal in terms 4 of time and effort and money. He needed more 5 information. 6 Q. Okay. And what is Mr. Davis telling Ted 7 Torkelson in No. 1? I can read the words, but I don't 8 understand what he's talking about. 9 A. What he was saying -- and this was also 10 reported in Dr. Cooper's report -- that out of the 11 10,000 or so workers in the study, about one-third of 12 them were identified by the plant personnel with regard 13 to their exposure status. 14 Q. With what? 15 A. With regard to their exposure status. 16 The other 66 percent or so were based on a 17 review of the records by the original contractor, 18 meaning Clark Cooper's group at that time. 19 Q. All right. Now, tell me what that means. Does 20 that mean that Dr. Cooper got one-third of his data from 21 the plants filling out questionnaires and sending those 22 answered questionnaires back to him, as opposed to 23 Dr. Cooper and his colleagues going to the plant and 24 microfilming records? 25 A. Let me take a look. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 279 1 Q. Okay. 2 A. Yes, in Dr. Cooper's publication, he described 3 how the data were collected. For about two-thirds, 66 4 percent, of the study population, he actually sent 5 people out to the locations to copy personnel records, 6 employment records. 7 Q. As to 8 A. And 9 Q. As to approximately 66 percent? 10 A. That's 66 percent, two-thirds. 11 Q. Okay. 12 A. And for the remaining one-third, or 33 percent, 13 the exposed workers were identified by the companies. 14 Q. Okay. Now, turn the page to No. 3 -- to 15 page 3. And once again, I can read the words in No. 2, 16 but I don't know what it means. What does that mean? 17 A. Oh. Basically, No. 2 says that one of the 18 weakest aspects of the study, of the Clark Cooper study, 19 was the exposure classification in terms of high, 20 medium, and low. It was stated by Tabershaw and Gaffey, 21 even in their very first report, that the classification 22 of high, medium, and low was only relative to each other 23 within each location. The classification was not 24 standardized across locations, and that create a 25 problem, obviously, because one location's medium may be DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 280 1 high in another location. So, that is not a good way of 2 doing classification of exposure, and they recognized 3 that, and Mr. Davis talk about that. 4 And indeed, when we update the Clark Cooper 5 study, we decided that that information is not 6 appropriate. We did not use that classification at all. 7 Q. Okay. You abandoned the procedure of 8 quantifying exposures by low, medium, and high in your 9 study; is that correct? 10 A. That's correct. 11 MR. COLBERT: Objection, form. 12 MR. STEWART: Q. Now, down in the paragraph 13 that's numbered 3, what is Mr. Davis telling us there? 14 A. Well, that refers to the same thing. 15 Q. All right. On page 4, in the second 16 paragraph -- well, on page 4 as a whole, is Mr. Davis 17 saying, in essence, therefore, based on the foregoing 18 reasons, EHA suggests that we do the study in a manner 19 which does not undertake to quantify exposures into 20 high, medium, and low, because really and truly, that 21 doesn't make a lot of sense when you're comparing 22 plants, because what might constitute high in Plant 1 23 perhaps would -- would be classified as low in Plant 3? 24 A. Where do you get that on page 4? 25 Q. Well, yeah. I mean, I'm just saying, is DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 281 1 Mr. Davis in essence telling Torkelson that because of 2 the fact that we don't see any real value in sticking 3 with the quantification of high, medium, and low, as far 4 as exposure goes, we're proposing just to go to a 5 category of "exposed"? 6 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 7 THE WITNESS: I don't think Mr. Davis make that 8 decision at that time. 9 MR. STEWART: Q. Well, it's -10 A. It's not indicated in the letter. 11 Q. Is that what happened eventually? 12 A. Eventually, when we look at a study, when we 13 run the analysis, we decided -- as I told you, we 14 decided not to use that. But that was a much later 15 decision. 16 We recognized the limitations early on, as 17 Dr. Tabershaw and Dr. Gaffey, as well as Dr. Cooper, 18 pointed out a long time ago in their own papers, that 19 the classification may not be a hundred percent 20 accurate. And based on that, we decided not to use 21 that. Instead, we use other exposure indexes, such as 22 age at first exposure, time period of exposure. We used 23 those instead of the high, medium, and low. 24 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit 19 was 25 marked for identification.) DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 282 1 MR. STEWART: Q. I'm now handing you what's 2 identified as Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 19, which appears' 3 to be a record of a meeting of the Vinyl Chloride 4 Research Coordinator Group of the Vinyl Chloride Program 5 Panel of the Chemical Manufacturers Association. And it 6 shows that you and Dr. Whorton were present. 7 Do you recall, not specifically this meeting, 8 but do you recall attending meetings of the Vinyl 9 Chloride Research Coordinator Group during that period 10 of time when you were making your proposals for a study 11 to the Chemical Manufacturers Association? 12 A. Yes. 13 Q. And according to this exhibit, Dr. Otto Wong 14 presented an update on Phase II of the epidemiological 15 studies. 16 Do you know what your update was that you 17 presented to the group? Can you tell from this 18 document? 19 A. We present the status at that time to the 20 group, the status of the project at that time. 21 Q. All right. This is actually reporting to the 22 CMA group results of analyses up to that point? 23 A. Basically, we described where the project was 24 at that time in terms of how many people we have found 25 out whether they are still alive or dead, how many death DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 283 1 certificates we have obtained and so on. But we did 2 not -- we did not perform any mortality analysis, and we 3 did not present to the group at that time any results. 4 Q. Did you discuss with the group at this meeting 5 whether or not a system of reclassification should be 6 adopted? 7 A. I think there was some discussion on can we 8 make something out of the classification, make it -- if 9 we can modify it, can we make it into something more 10 meaningful. And the final conclusion was we won't be 11 able to do that. So, at the end, we did not use the old 12 classification of high, medium, and low. 13 Q. Okay. On page 2, down at the -- in the last 14 paragraph, next to the last sentence, was it the 15 conclusion at that meeting: 16 "In any system of reclassification, one 17 must look for both the false positives, as 18 well as the false negatives. The latter 19 was not done as no new individuals were 20 identified as needing to be added to the 21 cohort. In addition, at plant 39 two 22 previously unexposed jobs were reclassified 23 as exposed." 24 What is that talking about? I don't understand 25 "one must look for both the false positives as well as DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 284 1 the false negatives." 2 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 3 THE WITNESS: In other words, we are talking 4 about the potential problem of misclassification in 5 terms of exposure. And in any epidemiologic study, 6 there is always certain amount of misclassification. It depends on how serious the problem is. 8 And in this case, we are talking about if we 9 use the old system, some people who were -- indeed were 10 exposed might have been classified as not exposed. But 11 the reverse might also have happened, okay? So, when we 12 talk about false positive, meaning that the system 13 classified that person as exposed, when indeed, that 14 person was not. And false negative would be the system 15 classified that person as unexposed, but indeed, that 16 person was exposed. 17 So, we have errors both ways, potentially. 18 And since we are not adding any new people to 19 the study because we make the decision of just updating 20 the same cohort in Clark Cooper's study, so any false 21 negative, okay, anybody who were classified as unexposed 22 when Clark Cooper did his study, we would never include 23 them in our update. So, since we didn't do that, we 24 decided not to go through the reclassification again. 25 MR. STEWART: Q. And that was certainly agreed DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 285 1 to by the CMA representatives who were present at this 2 meeting, was it not? 3 A. That's true, yes. 4 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit 20 was 5 marked for identification.) 6 MR. STEWART: Q. I'm now going to hand you 7 what's identified as Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 20 and ask 8 you to tell me what that is, Dr. Wong. 9 A. Well, the first two pages represent a bimonthly 10 progress report of our study. 11 Q. Okay. You've already gotten your contract 12 signed with CMA. This document says that that happened 13 March 11, 1982. And so this is a progress report that 14 you and your company submitted after you had signed your 15 contract with CMA? 16 A. Yes. The contract was signed on March 11th, 17 and the progress report was dated May 18th. So, two 18 months after the contract was signed. 19 Q. Now, over on pages 3 and 4, these appear to be 20 questionnaires seeking information. Tell me about 21 these. What -- who prepared these questionnaires, and 22 who were they sent to to be filled out? 23 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 24 THE WITNESS: In the Cooper study, not everyone 25 in the study had a Social Security number in the DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 286 1 database. Some companies did not provide Social 2 Security number or name to Clark Cooper because of 3 confidentiality. I don't know what kind of policy they 4 have with the company. 5 MR. STEWART: Q. Do you know which companies 6 that was? 7 A. I don't know. This -- there's some individuals 8 in the study that do not have a name or a Social 9 Security number in the database. 10 When we did our update, we need that 11 information. We need the personal identifier -- the 12 name, the Social Security number -- in order to obtain 13 vital status information from external sources, such as 14 the Social Security Administration, the National Death 15 Index. 16 And this questionnaire, the purpose of this 17 questionnaire was trying to obtain the personal 18 identifiers from those companies so that we can do an 19 external follow-up on those individuals. 20 Q. Did any of the companies to whom you sent this 21 form refuse to fill it out and provide you all of the 22 personal identifiers that you were seeking? 23 A. We ran into some difficulties. Some companies, 24 some plants, decided not to spend the time to look up 25 the information for us. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 287 1 The other problem is we are talking about a 2 time lapse of 10, 15 years between our update and Clark 3 Cooper's data collection in the first study. And all we 4 provide to the plant was a study number. That's the 5 only identification we have. And some plants, they did 6 not keep a copy of that ID number and the name and the 7 Social Security number, so they have no way of going 8 back to identify who that person was, based on our study 9 ID number. 10 Q. Uh-huh. 11 A. The key was gone -- to this was gone. 12 And we tried to tell them, please try to 13 identify the individual by looking at their hire date, 14 birth date. With that you can -- you know, with those 15 two dates, maybe you can identify that individual. And 16 some companies reported -- replied by saying that it 17 just take too much time. We can't do that. We cannot 18 go through all the records for the last 40, 50 years 19 just looking at the birthday and the hire day just to 20 match up these people. 21 In fact, one of the letters that you showed me 22 yesterday was exactly that: The person replied by 23 saying if we don't give you the information and you 24 don't update our group, what kind of impact it would 25 have on your study. What they are trying to say is, my DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 288 1 group is so small, the number of people from our 2 location is so small, maybe it doesn't matter that much. 3 Indeed, we pointed out in our report that 803 4 workers were not updated in our update. In other words, 5 their vital status remained the same as in the previous 6 study, and we cut off the person years of observation 7 from that time on. 8 Q. In addition to some of the companies telling 9 you that it was just too much trouble for them to go 10 through, you also got responses in the form of the 11 letter from Torkelson that we looked at last night, 12 where he said it was Dow's policy not to furnish 13 information on certain Michigan employees who were still 14 living. 15 Do you recall that letter that we looked at? 16 A. Yes. 17 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit 21 was 18 marked for identification.) 19 MR. STEWART: Q. I'm now going to hand you 20 what's been identified as Wong Exhibit No. 21. And I 21 believe this is just a copy acknowledging that your 22 contract with CMA had been consummated. 23 Is that accurate? 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. Did you tell me yesterday that you knew who DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 289 1 Carol Stack was? 2 A. Yes. She was a -- what we call a program 3 manager at CMA. 4 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 13 5 was marked for identification.) 6 MR. STEWART: Q. I'm now going to hand you 7 what is -8 MR. COLBERT: Being altered. 9 MR. STEWART: Q. -- what is being altered, but 10 the alteration amounts to a mere transferal of a tab 11 from one document to another document which is one and 12 the same. 13 I hand to you what's identified as Plaintiffs' 14 Exhibit No. 13 and ask you to take a look at that. 15 And I only have two of these. 16 This is a letter that's obviously from the 17 Chemical Manufacturers Association, dated June 8, 1982, 18 and it reflects on the second page, does it not, that a 19 copy was sent to you at EHA? 20 A. What's that? I'm sorry. 21 Q. I said this purports to be a letter from the 22 Chemical Manufacturers Association, dated June 8, 1982, 23 and on the second page, it indicates that a copy of this 24 letter was sent to you at EHA? 25 A. That's what it says, yes. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 290 1 Q. And it also indicates that a copy was sent to 2 Ted Torkelson at Dow, does it not? 3 A. That's what it says. 4 Q. All right. Do -- do you have any recollection 5 of having known or met this G.E. Disch, D-I-S-C-H, 6 general manager of Tenneco Chemicals? 7 A. No, I never met him or her. Him, I guess. 8 Q. This letter is signed by Carol R. Stack. This 9 is the same Carol R. Stack that you told me a minute ago 10 was Vinyl Chloride Program administrator for the CMA; is 11 that correct? 12 A. She was the administrator for that program at 13 that time. 14 Q. All right. In the very first paragraph, the 15 name Donald Hunter is mentioned. Is that a name with 16 which you're familiar? 17 A. No. 18 Q. Okay. In the second paragraph, Ms. Stack is 19 apparently reminding Mr. Disch that an original study 20 was done under contract to Tabershaw/Cooper Associates 21 and Equitable Environmental Health. Final report was 22 released in '78. Study consisted of a population of 23 approximately 10,000, so forth. 24 Down in the third paragraph, in the last -25 well, let me read the third paragraph: DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 291 1 "When the final report was issued, EEH 2 suggested that the population be studied 3 again within 5 years to clarify questions 4 about cancer at sites other than the liver. 5 Accordingly, major U.S. procedures of VCM 6 and PVC, including Tenneco, came together 7 under CMA and committed funds for a 8 seven-year update." 9 Was that your update or Cooper's update, or can 10 you tell? 11 A. Neither one. I mean, at that time they were 12 talking about -- well, let's go back. EEH recommended 13 an update after five years. 14 Q. Uh-huh. 15 A. And the next time it says that CMA was 16 considering a seven-year update, so it move from the 17 five to the seven. 18 When we actually update Clark Cooper's study, 19 it was a 10-year update. 20 Q. Okay. Now, the last sentence in that third 21 paragraph reads this: "The producers" -- that would 22 refer to the companies that produce vinyl chloride 23 products? Would that be correct? 24 A. I would assume that's correct, yes. 25 Q. -- "felt strongly that a good retrospective DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 292 1 mortality study would be an invaluable reference in 2 future vinyl chloride litigation." 3 Did Ms. Stack or anybody else with CMA ever 4 have discussions with you about the fact that these 5 vinyl chloride studies that CMA was sponsoring and 6 paying for would, among other things, be a good 7 retrospective mortality -- would represent a good 8 retrospective mortality study that would be an 9 invaluable reference in future vinyl chloride 10 litigation? 11 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form 12 THE WITNESS: I don't disagree with that 13 statement because litigation should be based on good 14 science, and if CMA is going to sponsor a study so that 15 we can have good science, so be it. 16 MR. STEWART: Q. Now, my question was, did 17 anybody from the Chemical Manufacturers Association, 18 whether it was Ms. Stack or anybody else, discuss with 19 you that one of the reasons that CMA was undertaking 20 these vinyl chloride studies was to gain invaluable 21 reference in future vinyl chloride litigation? 22 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 23 THE WITNESS: No, sir. No, they did not. 24 MR. STEWART: Q. So, you didn't know that that 25 was one of the purposes that CMA had in mind for doing DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 293 1 these studies? 2 MR. COLBERT: Objection, form. 3 THE WITNESS: They never talked to me about 4 that. 5 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 14 6 was marked for identification.) 7 MR. STEWART: Q. Okay. Now going to hand you 8 what's identified as Wong Exhibit No. 14. I'll ask you 9 if you can tell me what that is, please, sir. 10 A. This is a cover letter that went out with those 11 forms that we talked about to obtain information, such 12 as name and Social Security number. 13 Q. This cover letter went to a gentleman by the 14 name of Ralph Ferrel, plant manager with Conoco in 15 Westlake, Louisiana; correct? 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. And the letter is signed by you; is that 18 correct? 19 A. Actually, that doesn't look like my signature. 20 I think we send the form out to many plants, 21 and I believe the project manager, Kathleen Claxton, 22 actually signed that letter for me. But I look at the 23 letter. I didn't sign on the letter. 24 Q. She had your permission to sign this letter? 25 A. Right. Right. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 294 1 Q. Okay. And in this letter, in the second 2 paragraph, last sentence, you state, do you not -- or 3 your assistant, with your approval -- states: 4 "The producers felt strongly that a good 5 retrospective mortality study would be an 6 invaluable project from both the medical 7 and legal points of view." 8 Did I read that correctly? 9 A. Right. 10 MR. STEWART: Let's go off of the record. 11 We've been going for a little more than an hour, and the 12 court reporter is not getting any younger, and her 13 fingers are hurting. 14 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Time is 9:03. We're off the 15 record. 16 (Recess taken: 9:03 a.m. until 9:12 a.m.) 17 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Time is 9:12. We're on the 18 record. 19 MR. STEWART: Q. Dr. Wong, back during the 20 time you and your colleagues at Environmental Health 21 Associates were doing your follow-up study of the vinyl 22 chloride workers, do you have any specific recollection 23 of the reporting of some brain tumors at the Union 24 Carbide plant in Texas City? Not the one in 25 South Carolina, but the Union Carbide plant at DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 295 1 Texas City? 2 A. I don't recall the details. 3 Q. Okay. 4 Do you know or have you ever known a person by 5 the name of Gordon S. Siegal, medical doctor? 6 A. The name sounds familiar. 7 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit 22 was 8 marked for identification.) 9 MR. STEWART: Q. Okay. I'm going to hand you 10 what's identified as Wong Exhibit 22, which is -11 appears to be on stationery of the Equitable 12 Environmental company that you had once worked for. It 13 is an interoffice memorandum dated March 13, 1979. 14 And I only have one copy. 15 But take a look at that, and my question is, 16 does that memorandum make reference to somebody at 17 Equitable getting a telephone call from a woman 18 purporting to be a reporter, wanting to know why brain 19 tumors had not been -- brain tumors from Union Carbide 20 in Texas City had not been included in -- I guess it 21 would have been Clark Cooper's study? 22 A. Right. 23 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 24 MR. STEWART: Q. Okay. Do you have any 25 THE REPORTER: I'm sorry. Was there an answer DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 296 1 to the question? 2 MR. STEWART: I think he said "right." 3 THE REPORTER: You know, I actually wrote that 4 down, but I didn't remember that I did. 5 MR. STEWART: Q. Now, are the names that 6 appear within that memorandum names that you recognize? 7 A. Well, I don't recognize the name of the woman. 8 Q. Right. 9 A. The reporter who called Dr. Siegal. 10 Q. Uh-huh. 11 A. I think Dr. Siegal may be the replacement of 12 Michael Utidjian at Equitable Environmental Health, 13 after Dr. Michael Utidjian left the company and joined 14 Union Carbide. 15 Q. All right. Are there any other names in that 16 memorandum that you recognize? 17 A. I'm trying to find what other names there are 18 on that page. I couldn't find it. 19 What other names are you referring to? 20 Q. Well, I don't have a copy of it. Are there any 21 other names in the memorandum, other than Siegal and the 22 woman who called? 23 A. And Mike Utidjian, Michael Utidjian. 24 Q. Mike Utidjian? 25 A. We talked about all three names. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 297 1 Q. Do you know one way or the other if there had 2 been some documented brain tumors found among workers at 3 the Union Carbide plant in Texas City that had not been 4 included in Clark Cooper's final report? 5 A. Well, in order to determine whether somebody is 6 in the study or not, we have to look at the definition, 7 okay? Number one, without looking at the list of the 8 participating plants, I don't even know whether this 9 location was one of them or not. 10 Q. Well, look at your list and see. It's probably 11 about No. 25. 12 A. Twenty-five? You're off by 10. It's 15. 13 Union Carbide, Texas City, yes. 14 Q. Okay. 15 A. Okay. Then we have to look at when the person 16 worked and how long he worked. Because the definition 17 was the minimum length of employment got to be at least 18 one year. 19 Q. Right. 20 A. And also work sometime after 1942. Okay. And 21 when Dr. Cooper did collect the data, I believe the 22 cut-off date was 1972. He actually went out and 23 collected data around that time. So, anybody who were 24 hired after 1972 would not be included. Anybody who 25 terminate his employment before 1942 would not be DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 298 1 included as well. 2 Q. Why is that? I'm still -- I'm still at a loss 3 to understand where this 1942 comes in. 4 A. Okay. The 1942, we have to determine -- when 5 we define a cohort, we need to know what kind of 6 employees we should include in terms of length of 7 employment. Do we want to include anybody who ever 8 worked there, even for people who worked there for only 9 one day? In most studies, we do not, because people who 10 work only one day may not provide much information 11 because they may spend the rest of their career on -- in 12 another industry. Okay? 13 The 1942, I believe, according to the documents 14 that we looked at yesterday, I believe, some records and 15 some companies were not complete before 1942. 16 Q. Would that have been Union Carbide's plant in 17 South Carolina? 18 A. That I don't know. I don't know. 19 Q. Okay. 20 A. Dr. Cooper mentioned that some records were not 21 complete before 1942, and therefore, in order not to 22 introduce any bias into the study, we started -- he 23 started the study from the time with complete records. 24 Q. Well, do you have any knowledge that there 25 were, in fact, employees working within the vinyl DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 299 1 industry before 1942, and that in all probability, those 2 employees working back during that time got much higher 3 exposures than did employees who worked throughout the 4 140s, 150s and 160s? 5 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 6 THE WITNESS: Most likely is true. The 7 exposure in the early days would be higher than the 8 subsequent years. 9 MR. STEWART: Q. Do you know what area of 10 these participating plants provided the greatest 11 potential for vinyl chloride monomer exposure, or what 12 jobs? 13 A. Well, remember we talk about the classification 14 provided by the plants -- high, medium and low -- and we 15 look at them and decided not to use them. 16 Q. Uh-huh. 17 A. That is the extent of my knowledge of the 18 previous classification. 19 Q. Okay. You've never -- you don't recall ever 20 seeing any documents that talked about workers who 21 cleaned kettles as being that group which was documented 22 as getting the highest exposures? 23 A. I might have seen some job titles classified by 24 the plants as high exposure or medium exposure, low 25 exposure, but certainly, I don't remember those job DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 300 1 titles now. 2 Q. Okay. Matter of fact, you told me yesterday 3 this is the one and only study that you've ever done on 4 vinyl chloride, isn't it? 5 A. This is the study that I am the PI -- one of 6 the PIs -- principal investigator -- together with 7 Dr. Whorton. 8 When I was at Georgetown, Chiazze 9 Dr. Chiazze also did a study of -- matter of fact, let 10 me -- let me take a look. 11 We did a proportional mortality study of PVC 12 fabricators. And at that time, I just joined 13 Dr. Chiazze, and I also worked on the study. But 14 Dr. Chiazze was the principal investigator in that 15 study. 16 Q. Okay. Now, a PVC fabricator or a person who 17 works in a PVC fabricating plant would be working in a 18 plant that receives polyvinyl chloride and converts it 19 into a finished product; is that correct? 20 A. I don't remember the details. 21 Q. There's not a lot of exposure at those plants, 22 is there? 23 A. I don't remember the details. 24 (Whereupon, Defendant's Exhibit 23 was 25 marked for identification.) DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 301 1 MR. STEWART: Q. I hand you what's been 2 identified as Wong Exhibit No. 23. Tell me what that 3 is. 4 A. I think this is another cover letter that went 5 out with the forms that we want the companies to fill 6 out to provide the information that we need to do 7 follow-up. 8 Q. Well, this is a letter from a gentleman by the 9 name of Robert S-C-H-N-A-T-T-E-R, biostatistician for 10 Union Carbide -11 MR. COLBERT: Vaughan, I think we are looking 12 at the wrong document. The document that Dr. Wong is 13 looking at is a letter with -- on Environmental Health 14 Associates, Inc. letterhead, signed by him. 15 MR. STEWART: Q. Okay. What does your letter 16 say? 17 A. My letter says, "Dear Susan." Is a letter from 18 me to Dr. Austin, Dr. Susan Austin. 19 Q. Who is that? 20 A. She was the corporate director of epidemiology 21 at Union Carbide. 22 Q. All right. What did you say to her in the 23 letter? I don't have another copy of it. 24 A. This is another cover letter that went out with 25 those forms that we talk about. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 302 1 Q. What is the date on that letter? 2 A. August 17th, 1982. 3 Q. Okay. And what did you say to Susan? 4 A. I asked her to provide the information to us to 5 fill out the forms so that we can do update. 6 Q. And she's at Union Carbide? 7 A. Yes. 8 Q. And you were wanting her to provide you with 9 forms on both the Carbide plant in South Carolina as 10 well as the Carbide plant in Texas City? 11 A. Yes. 12 Q. Okay. 13 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit 24 was 14 marked for identification.) 15 MR. STEWART: Q. I'm now handing you what's 16 identified as Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 24. Does that 17 appear to be a letter to you, dated January 21, 1983, 18 signed by the Union Carbide biostatistician Robert 19 Schnatter? 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. Did you ever know him? 22 A. Yes, I know Dr. Schnatter. 23 Q. How is it that you were acquainted with 24 Dr. Schnatter? 25 A. At that time, Dr. Schnatter was working at DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 303 1 Union Carbide, in Dr. Austin's group. Q. What is Dr. Austin's group? A. She was the corporate director of epidemiology, so her group would be the epidemiologic group at Union 5 Carbide. 6 Q. So, Union Carbide had its own epidemiological 7 group? 8 A. Yes. 9 Q. And where -- was -- were they officed in 10 South Carolina? 11 A. No. They're in Connecticut. 12 Q. Connecticut? 13 A. Yes. 14 Q. In addition to Susan Austin and Robert 15 Schnatter, did you know anybody else that was a member 16 of that group? 17 A. Well, Michael Utidjian was a medical director 18 at Union Carbide at that time. I don't know whether he 19 also worked in that group or not. 20 Q. Did you ever see any -- the results of any 21 epidemiological study performed by that group? 22 A. They publish papers of their studies. 23 Q. On what? 24 A. Of Union Carbide employees. 25 Q. Okay. Union Carbide employees who were exposed DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 304 1 to some type of chemical? 2 A. Yes. % 3 Q. What type of chemical? 4 A. I don't know. 5 Q. Did you see -- did they publish more than one 6 paper? 7 A. They published many papers. 8 Q. Were any of -- any of the papers concerned with 9 Union Carbide employees exposed to vinyl chloride? 10 A. I have not gone through all the papers. I 11 don't know. 12 Q. Hmm? 13 A. I don't know, I said. 14 Q. So, the -- the Susan Austin group at 15 Union Carbide, would that group be much like your group 16 at Environmental Health Associates? 17 A. No. Yesterday I told you that our group at 18 Environmental Health Associates, we have toxicologist, 19 we have industrial hygienist, nurse, and so on. Her 20 group was basically epidemiology. 21 Q. Okay. Well, in this letter that -- let me back 22 up. 23 Did you meet Robert Schnatter at a time when he 24 was employed by Union Carbide as a member of Susan 25 Austin's group, or had you met him when he worked in DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 305 1 some other capacity? 2 A. I have met Dr. Schnatter many, many times, and 3 I don't remember whether I met him around that time when 4 he was employed at Union Carbide. 5 Q. Who else has he worked for? 6 A. He's working for ExxonMobil now. 7 Q. Do you know if he left Union Carbide and went 8 directly to ExxonMobil? 9 A. I believe that was the case. 10 Q. Do you know who he worked for before he went 11 with Union Carbide? 12 A. Union Carbide might have been his first job, 13 his first professional job after school. 14 Q. Have you talked to him face to face? 15 A. Ever, in my life? 16 Q. Yes. 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. On how many occasions would you guess? 19 A. I don't remember how many occasions. 20 Q. I mean -- sounds like you might be pretty good 21 friends. Do the two of you get together periodically, 22 or do you see him at meetings or -23 A. I saw him at meetings, yes. 24 Q. Okay. Do you even at this date correspond with 25 him? DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 306 1 A. We are working on a project on benzene, 2 sponsored by API. I think I told you that yesterday. 3 And 4 Q. You told me that you were working with Robert 5 Schnatter yesterday? 6 A. No, I did not. 7 Q. Okay. 8 A. I said I'm working on a benzene project 9 sponsored by API, and I told you that yesterday. And 10 Dr. Schnatter 11 Q. I appreciate that. Thank you. 12 A. Dr. Schnatter is also involved in that project. 13 Q. And that project is sponsored by API, and is it 14 a project wherein you and Dr. Schnatter and others are 15 doing an epidemiological study of a cohort exposed to 16 benzene? 17 A. No. We are doing a case-control study. 18 Q. Honing in on a particular disease process? 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. What? 21 A. Leukemia and non-Hodgkin's -- leukemia and 22 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. 23 Q. Any particular type of leukemia? 24 A. We are interested in acute myeloid leukemia. 25 Q. And the persons who are being studied in this DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 307 1 benzene study, are they employees of petroleum plants? 2 A. Not very likely. We are doing the study in 3 Shanghai, China. We are doing a case-control study. 4 The study subjects would be leukemia patients, 5 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients, and their controls. I 6 don't think there is a refinery in Shanghai, so most 7 likely we would not run into employees of refineries. 8 Q. Where would the folks who are being studied in 9 Shanghai have conceivably gotten their exposure to 10 benzene? 11 A. Any workers who use solvents with benzene in it 12 would have -- would have exposure to benzene. 13 Q. And you are of the opinion, are you not, that 14 chronic exposures to low levels of benzene does not 15 cause acute myeloid leukemia? 16 A. If you tell me what you mean by "low." 17 Q. Well, I don't have any earthly idea. 18 So, as far as the Union Carbide plant in 19 Texas City and the brain tumors that were mentioned in 20 the document wherein it was described that a woman had 21 placed a call to Equitable and wanted to know if and why 22 some brain tumors had been excluded from a 23 epidemiological study, if those brain tumors in 24 Texas City had been documented, do you have any 25 knowledge that they ever ended up in any study, whether DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 308 1 it was your study or somebody else's study? 2 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 3 THE WITNESS: I have no idea. 4 MR. STEWART: Q. Are you aware that the 5 federal government was looking at -- at those particular 6 employees who had been diagnosed with brain tumor in 7 Texas City? 8 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 9 THE WITNESS: I remember NIOSH looking to that. 10 MR. STEWART: Q. Do you have any recollection 11 that NIOSH ever did a study, rendered a report about 12 those employees who worked for Union Carbide in 13 Texas City and had been diagnosed with brain tumor? 14 A. I remember some reports. 15 Q. What do you remember? 16 A. I remember some reports published by scientists 17 at NIOSH. I don't remember the details. 18 Q. You don't remember what the reports said? 19 A. No, I do not. 20 Q. Would those Union Carbide Texas City employees 21 who had been diagnosed with brain tumor have been part 22 of the cohort that you studied? 23 A. I would not know unless we have the identifying 24 information and match up with our cohort. The fact that 25 somebody works there, may or may not be in the cohort DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 309 1 because that person may or may not be exposed to vinyl 2 chloride. 3 Q. So, the answer is you don't know? 4 A. We don't know. 5 Q. Do you recall, as of the time you first got 6 involved in doing your vinyl chloride study, what the 7 OSHA air standard was for vinyl chloride? 8 A. No, I don't. 9 Q. Have you ever known? 10 A. I must know the number sometime when I was 11 when I was working on that project. But that was many 12 years ago. 13 Q. Do you know what the standard is today? 14 A. No, I don't. 15 Q. Have you ever heard of a medical disorder 16 called acroosteolysis? 17 A. No. 18 Q. You have never read any studies that were done 19 on vinyl chloride workers to determine whether or not 20 they had a disease called acroosteolysis? 21 A. No, I have not. 22 Q. Is it your belief, after the involvement that 23 you've had with vinyl chloride, that vinyl chloride, if 24 it's going to cause any medical disorders in humans, 25 it's a result of the vinyl chloride or one of its DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 310 1 metabolites attacking and damaging the interior of the 2 blood vessels in the body? 3 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 4 THE WITNESS: I don't know the mechanisms. 5 MR. STEWART: Q. Well, I know you don't. But 6 have you ever heard that that's what happens when vinyl 7 chloride does have an adverse effect upon the human 8 body, is that it attacks the interior lining of. the 9 blood vessels? 10 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 11 THE WITNESS: That's not my area of expertise. 12 I would not be able to answer you. 13 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit 25 was 14 marked for identification.) 15 MR. STEWART: Q. Okay. I'm going to hand you 16 what's identified PX 25, which, on the inside page, 17 claims to be an Epidemiological Investigation of Poly -18 of the Polyvinyl Chloride Industry in Reference to 19 Occupational Acroosteolysis. 20 Do you see that? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. Done by whom? 23 A. Are you asking me a question? 24 Q. Yes, sir. 25 A. I thought you said "done by whom." DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 311 1 Q. Who performed the study, according to this 2 document? 3 A. Well, the title page says the Institute of 4 Industrial Health at the University of Michigan. 5 Q. To your knowledge, is there an Institute of 6 Industrial Health at the University of Michigan? 7 A. I don't know. 8 Q. And the date of this document is February of 9 1969, is it not? 10 A. That's what it says. 11 Q. And it purports to be a confidential report to 12 the Medical Advisory Committee of the Manufacturing 13 Chemists Association. 14 Do you see that? 15 A. That's what it says. 16 Q. Is it your belief and understanding that the 17 Chemical Manufacturers Association was previously known 18 as the Manufacturing Chemists Association? 19 A. That's my understanding. 20 Q. All right. Now, on page -- and I to have use 21 the Bates stamp number at the bottom -- 072, at the top 22 it says "Section I, Introduction." 23 Do you see that? 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. "Between 1961 and 1963, a bizarre, DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 312 1 previously undescribed syndrome gradually 2 emerged within a polyvinyl chloride 3 synthesis plant in the United States." 4 And it goes on to describe that the -- the 5 effects that this bizarre, undescribed syndrome has on 6 the body may be a clubbing of the tips of the fingers, 7 could be skin lesions, Reynaud's phenomenon, bony 8 lesions and so forth. 9 And the CMA sponsored this study of plants that 10 were in the business of manufacturing PVC or VCM, to 11 determine the extent, if any, to which the employees in 12 these plants suffered the effects of this bizarre, 13 heretofore undefined syndrome. And you are telling me 14 that you have never heard about that study? 15 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 16 THE WITNESS: That's correct. 17 MR. STEWART: Q. Okay. Can you tell from 18 flipping through this document if this is the same or 19 similar type of study that you later performed for the 20 Chemical Manufacturers Association on vinyl 21 chloride-exposed workers? 22 A. I don't believe so. Ours was a historical 23 cohort mortality study, and this is obviously not. 24 Q. What -- what is this? 25 A. I don't know. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 313 1 Q. Well, from looking at it, you can't tell what 2 type of study this is? 3 A. You asked me to flip through a report with 4 100-and-some pages and tell you in a couple minutes what 5 this study is about? I cannot do that. 6 Q. Can you go so far as to tell me that it's an 7 investigation into the question of whether or not 8 workers in vinyl chloride plants suffered the effects of 9 this syndrome known as acroosteolysis? 10 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 11 THE WITNESS: I assumed that was the objective 12 of the study, just looking -- just based on the title of 13 the project. 14 MR. STEWART: Q. And would it make sense to 15 you that the people from the University of Michigan who 16 did the study would have had to at least identify some 17 sort of a cohort in order to know who to study? 18 A. I don't know their study design, so I cannot 19 comment on that. 20 Q. Well, I mean, they obviously would not have 21 been interested in going to plants or other locations 22 where there was no vinyl chloride and undertaking to do 23 x-ray exams and all sorts of other medical tests to 24 determine if any of the people had a vinyl 25 chloride-related syndrome. That wouldn't make any DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 314 1 sense, would it? ' 2 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 3 THE WITNESS: I don't know what they did, so I 4 cannot comment on it. 5 MR. STEWART: Q. All right. So, if you're 6 trying to determine whether or not vinyl chloride causes 7 osteoac -- acroosteolysis, what you have to do is look 8 at people who have had vinyl chloride exposure., do you 9 not? 10 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 11 THE WITNESS: As I said, I don't know how they 12 identify their study subjects, so I cannot comment on 13 that. 14 MR. STEWART: Q. Well, I mean, if the question 15 is, is there a relationship between exposure to vinyl 16 chloride and the disease acroosteolysis, isn't it 17 logical to assume that the people that you would look at 18 would be a study group who had had exposure to vinyl 19 chloride? 20 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 21 THE WITNESS: Of course, if you want to study 22 the effect of exposure to certain chemical, you got to 23 study persons with exposure to the chemical. 24 But what I'm trying to say is, if you make 25 reference to this particular investigation, I cannot DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 315 1 comment on that. The general question, yes, I will 2 agree with you. /How they apply to this study, I don't 3 know, because I have never look at this study before. 4 MR. STEWART: He's got to change tapes, so 5 we'll have to go off the record. 6 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: This marks the end of 7 Volume 2, Tape 1, in the deposition of Dr. Otto Wong. 8 The time is 9:50. We are off the record. 9 (Recess taken: 9:50 a.m. until 10:01 a.m.) 10 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: This marks the beginning of 11 Volume 2, Tape 2, in the deposition of Dr. Otto Wong. 12 The time is 10:01. We're on the record. 13 MR. STEWART: Q. Okay. Dr. Wong, despite the 14 preparation by the folks at the University of Michigan 15 of this 105-page document, which talks about possible 16 causal relationship between vinyl chloride and a disease 17 process known as acroosteolysis, you have just never 18 heard of that disease or heard of that study; is that 19 correct? 20 A. That's correct. 21 Q. And again, this document is dated back in 22 February of 1969, is it not? 23 A. That's what it says. 24 THE REPORTER: Do you want me to mark more 25 tags? DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 316 1 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Want me to go off the record 2 for a second? 3 MR. STEWART: Yeah. 4 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Time is 10:03.We're off 5 the record. 6 (Discussion off the record.) 7 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: The time is 10:04. We're on 8 the record. 9 (Whereupon, Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 26 10 was marked for identification.) 11 MR. STEWART: Q. All right. I'm now handing 12 to you what is identified as Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 26, 13 and this purports to be a "Vinyl Chloride 14 Carcinogenicity: Available Scientific Evidence and 15 Control Measures," prepared by Professor Cesare Maltoni. 16 You told me yesterday that you had at least 17 heard that name, did you not? 18 A. I did. 19 Q. Hmm? 20 A. I did. 21 Q. Did you ever read any of the publications that 22 Dr. Maltoni wrote on the subject of causal relationship 23 between vinyl chloride exposure and cancer in laboratory 24 animals? 25 A. I'm not a toxicologist, so I really don't DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 317 1 understand all the technical aspects of 2 Professor Maltoni's experiments. But I was aware of 3 what he was doing, and basically, I was aware of the 4 results of his studies. But I would not be able to 5 comment on the details of how he did his experiment. 6 Q. You took a course, I believe you told me, in 7 toxicology? 8 A. Yes. 9 Q. Can you tell me as a general proposition why 10 toxicologists perform tox studies of various and sundry 11 chemicals on lab animals? 12 A. The rationale behind that is if we see a 13 substance that can produce tumors in lab animals, in 14 experimental animals, we should look at the effects of 15 that chemical in humans. It's kind of like setting the 16 priority what we should do in humans. 17 Q. Okay. And as a matter of fact, within industry 18 in the United States, the Dow Chemical Company has had 19 for many, many years, a very fine toxicology lab in 20 Midland, Michigan, have they not? 21 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 22 THE WITNESS: I know that they have a lab 23 there. 24 MR. STEWART: Q. Have you ever been to 25 Midland, Michigan? DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 318 1 A. Yes, I have. 2 Q. For -- how many times have you been there? 3 A. Maybe once. Maybe once. 4 Q. Why did you go to Midland, Michigan? 5 A. When I was working for Biometric Research 6 Institute, we had a project with Dow Corning, some kind 7 of intraocular lens implant, a clinical trial study. 8 Q. And did you just visit the Dow Corning plant, 9 or did you have occasion to go over and visit the Dow 10 Chemical plant while you were there? 11 A. We didn't even visit any plant. We had a 12 meeting there. 13 Q. And where did you have your meeting? 14 A. In a conference room. 15 Q. At 16 A. At Dow Corning. 17 Q. -- the hotel? 18 A. At Dow Corning. 19 Q. Oh, at Dow Corning. Okay. 20 I assume that you are aware that the corporate 21 headquarters of the Dow Chemical Company is in Midland, 22 Michigan -23 A. Yes. 24 Q. -- are you not? 25 That's where Ted Torkelson lived and worked? DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 319 1 Are you familiar with that? 2 A. I don't know that. 3 Q. You don't know where he worked 4 A. He worked in Midland, Michigan, but I don't 5 know where he lives. 6 Q. Do you know whether he was a toxicologist? 7 A. I believe he was a toxicologist by training. 8 Q. Did you ever have occasion to know V.K. Rowe? 9 A. Do I know what? 10 Q. Did you ever have occasion to know another 11 toxicologist who worked for many years for the Dow 12 Chemical Company in Midland, Michigan, by the name of 13 V.K. Rowe, R-O-W-E? Varyl Keith Rowe? 14 A. I don't recall. that name at all. 15 Q. At the time that you heard about or were 16 familiar with the studies and. the findings that 17 Dr. Maltoni was making in the lab animals that were 18 exposed to various concentrations of vinyl chloride, 19 were you aware of the organs in which Dr. Maltoni found 20 tumors in the lab animals which were exposed to vinyl 21 chloride? 22 A. I don't remember that I went into such detail 23 in reading his publication. 24 The reason I read his publication was when we 25 prepare our report, in the introduction, we want to DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 320 1 summarize what we knew at that time, before we did the 2 study. And it's a common practice for epidemiologists 3 to at least refer to some animal studies to discuss 4 whether that substance is a -- an animal carcinogen or 5 not. 6 Q. Is it your recollection that a goal of a 7 toxicologist who expose lab animals to chemical 8 compounds is to hopefully find an exposure level at 9 which they do not see any adverse effects upon the lab 10 animals? 11 A. As long as we're talking about experimental 12 animals, that would be correct. 13 Q. In other words, is one of the goals of a 14 toxicologist to find a no-effect level for a particular 15 chemical? 16 A. In experimental animals, yes. 17 Q. And have you heard that term before, "no-effect 18 level"? 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. Do you know if Dr. Maltoni ever found a 21 no-effect level for vinyl chloride? 22 A. I don't know that. 23 Q. Did you tell me yesterday that you had heard of 24 P.L. Viola? 25 A. I don't recall that name. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 321 1 Q. Okay. You've never -- you've never heard of 2 the Italian scientist who worked on vinyl chloride 3 studies in the sixties and seventies at the same time 4 that Dr. Maltoni was doing his studies, and this 5 scientist's name was P.L. Viola? 6 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 7 THE WITNESS: I don't remember that name at 8 all. 9 MR. STEWART: Q. At this time in our history 10 of the United States, do we still have an OSHA, so far 11 as you know? 12 A. You mean today? 13 Q. Uh-huh. 14 A. Whether OSHA is still in existence? 15 Q. Yes, sir. 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. Is -- to your knowledge, is EPA still in 18 existence? 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. And to your knowledge, is NIOSH still in 21 existence? 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. Do you have any understanding of whether any of 24 these governmental agencies, be it EPA, OSHA, or NIOSH, 25 at this time publish risk assessments on chemicals that DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 322 1 have heretofore been classified as carcinogens? 2 A. I believe they still do'. 3 Q. Do you know which of the -- these governmental 4 agencies publish such risk assessments? 5 A. I don't have the detail. I don't follow that. 6 Q. Are -- are you in any way involved with any of 7 these governmental agencies at this time, or in the last 8 two or three years, in the preparation of risk 9 assessments on any chemicals which have heretofore been 10 designated as carcinogens? 11 A. No. 12 Q. Do you know any -- anybody who has been 13 involved as part of the working group for either EPA, 14 OSHA, or NIOSH, in doing risk assessments on chemicals 15 that have classified as carcinogens? 16 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 17 THE WITNESS: I have no knowledge of that. 18 MR. STEWART: Q. Have you heard of a 19 governmental publication entitled Toxicological Review? 20 A. That's the title of it? No. 21 Q. Okay. Have you heard of a branch or a subpart 22 of EPA which goes by the acronym I-R-I-S, which is an 23 organization -- which is a group that compiles 24 scientific information on chemicals that have been 25 designated as carcinogens and puts that information into DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 323 1 a database? 2 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 3 MR. STEWART: Q. Have you heard of that? 4 A. I have heard of that database. 5 Q Sir? 6 A. I have heard of that database. 7 Q. Okay. Do you know what that acronym, I-R-I-S, 8 stands for? 9 A. I don't -- I don't remember. 10 Q. All right. Have you used that database? 11 A. No, I do not. 12 Q. You've just heard of it? 13 A. Yes. 14 Q. Do you know how -- how it is that you came to 15 hear about this database?, 16 A. I heard people refer to the database. I don't 17 remember the circumstances. 18 Q. Do you know if any of the information contained 19 within the IRIS database concerns the chemical vinyl 20 chloride? 21 A. What was the question? 22 Q. Do you know if any of the information that's 23 contained within the IRIS database pertains to vinyl 24 chloride? 25 A. Well, I just said a minute ago that I have DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 324 1 never used that database, so I would not know what kind 2 of information it has on vinyl chloride. 3 Q. Do you recall who you heard mention this IRIS 4 database? 5 A. A lot of people talk about that. I don't 6 remember whom I heard that from. 7 Q. Well, if it's a lot of people, can you tell me 8 two or three people who have mentioned it? 9 A. I don't remember their names. I -- it's a 10 database commonly used by some people. 11 Q. Do you know how long it's been in existence? 12 A. No, I don't. 13 Q. Do you know who the individuals were who did 14 the research that went into the IRIS database? 15 A. No, I don't. 16 Q. Do you have any knowledge that those 17 individuals were in any way affiliated with or connected 18 with the Chemical Manufacturers Association? 19 A. No, I don't. 20 Q. How much are you being paid by Shintech's 21 lawyers for your efforts in this case? 22 A. My hourly rate is $450 an hour. I spent 23 must be couple of days going over the records, talking 24 to Mr. Colbert last year, when he first contact me. And 25 then there was not much activity until this deposition. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 325 1 Q. Okay. Do you know how many hours you've 2 chalked up until this point? 3 A. No, I don't. 4 Q. Do you know how much money is clue you at this 5 point? 6 A. No, I don't. 7 Q. Okay. You charge $450 an hour whether you're 8 sitting in your office looking at documents or sitting 9 in a conference room in a law office giving a 10 deposition? 11 A. Yes. 12 Q. Did you have occasion to see the special on PBS 13 that was done by Bill Moyers, which discussed diseases 14 amongst vinyl chloride workers? 15 A. No, I did not. 16 Q. Have you ever heard of it? 17 A. No. 18 Q. Have you been told anything about the worker in 19 this case who was employed by Shintech and developed 20 glioblastoma multiforme and died in October of 2000? 21 Has anybody told you anything about that individual? 22 A. I come to that understanding based on reviewing 23 some documents provided to me. 24 Q. What -- what documents did you review that 25 pertained to Carlin Staples, who is the individual who DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 326 1 died of glioblastoma multiforme? 2 A. I think it was a pleading or answer to 3 interrogatories or some terminology that lawyers use. 4 Q. Do you recall how old Mr. Staples was at the 5 time of his death? 6 A. He died in October, year 2000, and he was born 7 in 1961. So that makes him -- what, 39 years old? 8 Q. And do you know what year he began working for 9 Shintech? 10 A. May 1988. 11 Q. And do you know what his job title was for 12 Shintech during the years that he worked there? 13 A. He started as an unloader, meaning that he 14 unload -- part of his job would be unloading vinyl 15 chloride from tank cars and so on. 16 Q. Do you know anything about the unloading 17 procedure that Mr. Staples followed while he was an 18 employee at Shintech? 19 A. No, I don't. 20 Q. Do you know anything about the procedures that 21 are followed by any company that unloads liquid vinyl 22 chloride from railroad tank cars? 23 A. No, I don't. 24 Q. Do you know what a strainer is at a polyvinyl 25 chloride manufacturing plant? DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 327 1 A. I'm not sure, but I assume it is some kind of 2 filter that would separate the liquid from some solid or 3 residue in the -- in the liquid. 4 Q. Do you know at room temperature whether vinyl 5 chloride is a solid, gas, or liquid? 6 A. Under pressure, is a liquid, yes. 7 Q. And -8 A. I think we have to talk about not only 9 temperature but also what pressure we are talking about. 10 Q. Well, at room temperature and normal 11 atmospheric pressure, is vinyl chloride monomer a liquid 12 or a vapor? 13 A. I believe it's a gas. 14 Q. Do you know whether it's heavier or lighter 15 than air? 16 A. That I don't remember. 17 Q. In order to maintain vinyl chloride monomer 18 vapor in a liquid state, it has to be kept under 19 pressure; is that what you're telling me? 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. Do you have any recollection of the highest 22 exposure that any person within your 10,173-male cohort 23 ever received at any time? 24 A. According to the reports by Tabershaw and 25 Gaffey as well as Cooper, the average exposure in the DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 328 1 high category in their classification would be in excess 2 of 200 ppm. 3 Q. Do you know how much in excess? 4 A. I don't know that. That's the only information 5 they provide. 6 Q. Do you have an understanding of what the odor 7 threshold for vinyl chloride monomer is? 8 A. I don't know that. 9 Q. You don't know what concentration of vinyl 10 chloride monomer must be in the air in order for the 11 average human being to detect the odor? 12 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 13 THE WITNESS: I have not looked it up, so I 14 cannot tell you today. 15 THE REPORTER: I'm sorry? 16 THE WITNESS: I have not looked it up, so I 17 would not be able to tell you today. 18 MR. STEWART: Q. Do you have any recollection 19 that that is something that you knew back during the 20 time that you were doing your vinyl chloride study for 21 the Chemical Manufacturers Association? 22 A. I don't remember that I ever looked it up or 23 not. 24 Q. Do you have any recollection of reading that 25 the only way some of the vinyl chloride plants back in DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 329 1 the '40s and '50s were able to make any sort of an 2 estimate of vinyl chloride monomer levels wa5based upon 3 whether or not the employees detected the odor? 4 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 5 THE WITNESS: I don't know that. 6 MR. STEWART: Q. You've never read something 7 like that? 8 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 9 THE WITNESS: No, I did not. 10 MR. STEWART: Q. In all the cases in which 11 you've been hired by lawyers for chemical companies and 12 the allegations were that a worker got sick or died 13 because of exposure to a chemical compound, have you 14 ever testified that there was a causation between 15 chemical exposure and the disease that caused that 16 employee's illness or death? 17 A. Well, sometimes when I look at the exposure 18 history of the worker, and I express my opinion to the 19 lawyers that, indeed, for example, the exposure to 20 benzene was sufficiently high to increase the risks of 21 acute myeloid leukemia, when I express that opinion to 22 attorneys, they would not ask me to testify. 23 Q. Well, my question is, when you have been hired 24 by lawyers representing chemical companies wherein 25 somebody has sued the chemical company and alleged that DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 330 1 a person was exposed to chemical X and, as a result of 2 being exposed to chemical X, that person either 3 developed disease Y or died from disease Y, have you 4 ever given a deposition or appeared in court and 5 expressed the opinion that, yes, in your opinion, there 6 was a causal relationship between the chemical exposure 7 and the victim's disease or death? 8 A. And what I just told you was that when I find 9 that out, when I express my opinion to attorneys, we 10 never go to a deposition. 11 Q. Did you not understand the question? 12 A. I understand the question. What I'm saying is, 13 when I express my opinion that indeed, the exposure 14 causes the disease, then I didn't -- then attorney did 15 not want me to testify anymore. 16 Q. Have you ever testified on a deposition or in a 17 court of law in a lawsuit in which a plaintiff was suing 18 a chemical company and alleging that exposure to a 19 chemical caused a disease or death, and in your 20 deposition testimony or your court testimony, you 21 testified that, yes, in your opinion, chemical X in fact 22 caused disease Y or death from, disease Y? 23 A. I have not done that. 24 Q. Do you know why Dr. Milby left Environmental 25 Health Associates? DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 331 1 A. He is not going to -- it has to do with 2 something -= personal reasons. 3 Q. It what? 4 A. It has to do with some personal reasons. 5 Q. What personal reasons? 6 A. I'm not so sure I can disclose that. It has to 7 do with medical problems. 8 Q. Dr. Milby's ill? 9 A. I cannot discuss that. 10 Q. Well, when he left Environmental Health 11 Associates, did he go to work somewhere else? 12 A. He started his own company. 13 Q. And what did he call his company? 14 A. I don't remember. 15 Q. Does he still work? 16 A. I believe he is retired. 17 Q. Where was the company that he started located? 18 A. I think it's -- it was in Lafayette, 19 California, in the Bay Area. 20 Q. And what kind of a company did Dr. Milby set up 21 after he left Environmental Health Associates? 22 A. He provides consultation in terms of medical 23 problems and toxicological problems for workers. Among 24 workers. 25 Q. Do you know in what year Dr. Milby retired? DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 332 1 A. I don't. 2 Q. When did he leave Environmental Health 3 Associates? 4 A. Must be about '82, around '82. 5 Q. All right. Ted Torkelson wrote a letter 6 addressed to Dr. Milby that was dated August of 1982. 7 Was Dr. Milby actually still at Environmental Health 8 Associates in August of '82? 9 A. I don't remember the exact date he left. 10 Q. But when he left, was Environmental Health 11 Associates officing in Berkeley? 12 A. The office was in Berkeley, yes. 13 Q. And Dr. Milby moved from Berkeley to Lafayette? 14 A. His office, yes. 15 Q. How far is Lafayette from Berkeley? 16 A. Less than 10 miles, I would say. 17 Q. And did Dr. Milby associate with other 18 professionals in this new business that he started after 19 he left your company? 20 A. I don't know. 21 Q. Did you ever go to Dr. Milby's office after he 22 left Environmental Health Associates? 23 A. I have not. 24 Q. And did he ever come back and visit 25 Environmental Health Associates office after he left in DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 333 1 1982? 2 A. Not that I know of. 3 Q. When you first started up Environmental Health 4 Associates, you mentioned a Dr. -- was it Morgan? 5 A. Robert Morgan. 6 Q. Robert Morgan? 7 A. Right. 8 Q. He was one of the professionals who worked at 9 Environmental Health Associates when it was first 10 started? 11 A. Yes. 12 Q. Is he a medical doctor? 13 A. Yes. 14 Q. When did he leave Environmental Health 15 Associates? 16 A. I think we discussed that. He left 1998 or 17 '99. 18 Q. 1998? 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. There was still a company known as 21 Environmental Health Associates as late as 1998? 22 A. Well, in 1987, we became a division of ENSR 23 Corporation, and we continued to work for ENSR. I told 24 you I worked for three years, according to the 25 agreement. And Dr. Morgan left before the three years DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 334 1 were up. I don't remember exactly when. 2 MR. COLBERT: So you mean '88 or '89, not '98 3 or '99? 4 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry. '88 or '89. 5 MR. STEWART: Q. Okay. That's where I was 6 confused, because I understood you to say 1998. 7 A. I'm getting hungry. I need some carbohydrate. 8 Q. So, Dr. Robert Morgan left Environmental Health 9 Associates in 1988? 10 A. Or '89. I don't remember the exact date. 11 Q. And from Environmental Health Associates, where 12 did he go? 13 A. He started his own company. 14 Q. Where? 15 A. In Redwood City, California. 16 Q. How far is that from Berkeley? 17 A. Twenty, 30 miles. 18 Q. And what kind of services did his new company 19 perform? 20 A. He provide consultation in terms of 21 epidemiology, occupational medicine, to the industry. 22 Q. Do you know if other professionals joined 23 Dr. Robert Morgan in his new business after he left 24 Environmental Health Associates in 1988? 25 A. I don't. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 335 1 Q. Did you ever visit his -- his office in Redwood 2 City? 3 A. Yes, I did. 4 Q. On how many occasions? 5 A. Not that many. Six, seven times. Redwood City 6 is quite close to my office. It's about maybe like five 7 miles. And sometimes we had lunch. 8 Q. All right. After he left and set up his own 9 business in Redwood City, did you and Dr. Robert Morgan 10 work together on any epidemiological studies? 11 A. No, we did not work on any studies. 12 Q. And if I understood you correctly yesterday, 13 you told me that Dr. Robert Morgan, even when he was 14 with Environmental Health Associates, never worked on 15 any vinyl chloride studies. 16 Is that correct? 17 A. He did not work on our study in any substantial 18 way. I mean, the vinyl chloride study was a large-scale 19 study at that time in our company. But he did not work 20 on the study. 21 Q. And where is Donald Whorton at this time? 22 A. He's in, I believe, Alameda. 23 Q. Does he work with a company? 24 A. I don't know the latest status, but for a while 25 he was working mainly by himself with some support DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 336 1 staff . 2 Q. And that was in Alameda? ' 3 A. Yes. 4 Q. And when did he leave Environmental Health 5 Associates? 6 A. He left ENSR -- because later on it became 7 ENSR -- he left -- must be in the early 1990s. 8 Q. Do you have any knowledge or recollection if 9 any of the 37 plants in your cohort brought in vinyl 10 chloride monomer by railroad tank car and. off-loaded it? 11 A. I don't have that information. 12 Q. Did you have any understanding; while you were 13 doing your vinyl chloride study, that there was greater 14 exposure at plants that had the greater outputs of 15 either PVC or VCM? In other words, the plants that 16 manufactured the greatest volumes of PVC or VCM, did 17 they have the greatest exposures? 18 A. I don't know that. 19 Q. Do you believe that there's a correlation 20 between the amount of polyvinyl chloride produced by a 21 plant and the amount of exposure in that plant? 22 A. I don't know that. 23 Q. Have you ever read the OSHA regulations that 24 were promulgated back in '75 or '76 on vinyl chloride? 25 A. No, I have not. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 337 1 Q. Have you ever read any OSHA regulations on any 2 chemical? 3 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 4 THE WITNESS: I look at that once, the ones on 5 benzene. 6 MR. STEWART: Q. You have looked at the OSHA 7 reg on benzene? 8 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 9 THE WITNESS: Part of it, at least, yes. 10 MR. STEWART: Q. Is that something that you do 11 periodically? 12 A. no. 13 Q. You've only done it one time? 14 A. The reason being I was asked by OSHA to appear 15 before an administrative judge at the OSHA benzene 16 hearing. And I guess, you know, I want to look at the 17 transcript. 18 THE REPORTER: The transfer? 19 THE WITNESS: The transcript of what I 20 testified. 21 MR. STEWART: Q. Did you ever look at the 22 transcript of the OSHA hearing held back in the early 23 '70s, wherein they collected testimony to determine 24 whether or not OSHA wanted to reduce the air 25 concentration level for vinyl chloride? DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 338 1 A. No, I did not. 2 Q. Do you have knowledge of any of the 3 professionals who appeared at the vinyl chloride OSHA 4 hearings in the early '70s? 5 A. No, I do not. 6 Q. Have you ever talked to anybody who told you 7 that they were involved in the vinyl chloride OSHA 8 hearings? 9 MR. COLBERT: Objection. Form. 10 THE WITNESS: No, I have not. 11 MR. STEWART: Q. Are there any documents that 12 you base your opinion on in this case that you have not 13 talked about during this deposition? 14 A. As I said, I received a copy of the pleadings 15 or the answers to interrogatories. I received some 16 medical records, and I also received a copy of the 17 report prepared by Dr. Levy. 18 Q. Are there any other published studies on vinyl 19 chloride exposure upon which you base your opinion, that 20 you have not mentioned during the course of this 21 deposition? 22 A. No. 23 MR. STEWART: That's all I have. Thank you. 24 MR'. COLBERT: Off the record real quick. 25 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: The time is 10:49. We're DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 339 1 off the record. 2 (Discussion off the record.) 3 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Time is 10:52. We're on the 4 record. 5 FURTHER EXAMINATION BY MR. COLBERT 6 MR. COLBERT: Q. Dr. Wong, you've been 7 testifying now for a while. I wanted to just go over a 8 few -- a few things. 9 Yesterday, Mr. Stewart asked you a question 10 regarding the size, the cohort size in your study. 11 Do you recall that? 12 A. Yes. 13 Q. And I believe your answer was that a cohort of 14 the size of 10,000-plus people was sufficient to 15 determine or to find whether or not there might be an 16 association between an exposure or an occupation and 17 most cancers. 18 Do you recall that? 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. Is it your opinion that the cohort size in your 21 study was sufficient to determine a causal association 22 for angiosarcoma of the liver? 23 A. Well, that for sure, because we do have quite a 24 few cases of angiosarcoma in our study. 25 Q. Was your cohort size sufficient to determine DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 340 1 whether or not there was a causal association between 2 exposure to vinyl chloride and brain cancer? 3 A. We have quite a few cases of brain cancer as 4 well, so the statistics would be very stable. 5 Q. There was also some discussion concerning the 6 makeup of that cohort, the 10,173 men, as described by 7 Dr. Cooper and then yourself. 8 Do you recall that conversation? 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. And there's also some discussion concerning the 11 follow-up to your study by Dr. Mundt, where the cohort 12 size was decreased by a few people. 13 Do you recall that discussion? 14 A. Yes. As a matter of fact, the question was 15 raised whether everybody in our study was male, and it 16 turns out that actually, according to the follow-up by 17 Dr. Mundt, 11 -- I believe 10 or 11 -- according to the 18 information he received subsequently, indicate that 19 those 10 or 11 persons were female. 20 But again, you know, we are talking about a 21 study of 10,000. And sometimes the information on 22 gender may not be on the record. Then we have to make a 23 decision. And sometimes the name may or may not 24 indicate -- may or may not tell us whether the person is 25 a male or female. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 341 1 But 10- or 11,000 -- 10 or 11 persons in a 2 study of 10,000 persons would not have any impact. 3 Q. Dr. Wong, do you have any concerns about the 4 confidence -- excuse me -- yeah, do you have any 5 concerns about the confidence of the results of your 6 study? 7 A. I'm not sure what -8 Q. Are you confident that the results of your 9 study are accurate? 10 A. Well, the analyses we do, they are all 11 standard, well-accepted analyses in the cohort mortality 12 study. 13 Now, in terms of the data, we obtained the data 14 from Dr. Cooper. There was some discussion yesterday 15 that some exposure information was provided by the 16 plant, and is true that we did not have the opportunity 17 to go back and audit or verify the accuracy of every 18 single record we obtained from Dr. Cooper. But we 19 should be able to do some indirect assessment of the 20 quality of our data by looking at -- by comparing our 21 study to the NIOSH study. 22 Q. Okay. How would you compare your study to the 23 NIOSH study? 24 A. Well, the NIOSH study, according to the 25 authors, Wexweiler and also Dr. Wu, they collect their DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 342 1 own information. They also conducted what they call a 2 walk-through survey to determine which 'jobs were 3 exposed. So, based on their own decision, they did a 4 study. They classified people as to exposed/not 5 exposed. 6 The reassuring thing is, when we look at our 7 results and the NIOSH study results, they are very, very 8 similar, if not identical. For example, they find an 9 increase of liver cancer. We find an increase of liver 10 cancer. In fact, our risk ratio was higher than the 11 risk ratio reported by NIOSH. 12 They find an increase of brain cancer. We also 13 find an increase of brain cancer. The risk ratios from 14 two -- from these two studies were quite close. They 15 did not find a dose-response relationship for brain 16 cancer. We did not find a dose-response relationship 17 for brain cancer. 18 So, our results are very, very similar to the 19 NIOSH studies. So, that's reassuring that, indeed, the 20 data we receive are, you know, to a large extent 21 accurate. 22 Q. How did the results in your study compare to 23 the results in the Mundt study? 24 A. They are very similar as well. 25 Q. Okay. Dr. Wong, I'm going to hand to you what DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 343 1 was marked as Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 1. And is this 2 a -- is this an interim report? 3 A. It says "final report" on the -- on the title 4 page. 5 Q. Okay. Would you please turn with me to the 6 Bates stamped page 1055. You recall yesterday 7 Mr. Stewart asked you some questions about paragraph 5, 8 and I just wanted to make sure that the record was 9 complete. 10 Is it an accurate reading that the last 11 sentence in paragraph 5 says -- the paragraph 5 is 12 talking about cancers of the liver, respiratory system, 13 brain. Does the last sentence say, "Even though the 14 excesses were not statistically significant, the 15 findings warrant further study"? 16 A. That's what it says. 17 Q. Would you turn with me, please, to Bates page 18 1069, at the top of the page, and the exhibit is marked 19 in blue. 20 Do you see that? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. Okay. Would you read, please, for the jury the 23 next paragraph that begins "the possibility"? 24 A. "The possibility exists based on the lack 25 of specificity of some of the listed causes DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 344 1 that some of the brain cancers were not 2 primary, but mestastases from another 3 unidentified site, such as the lung." 4 Q. What does that mean? 5 A. That means some of those, even though brain 6 cancer was listed on the death certificate, they are not 7 the primary site. The primary site would have been lung 8 cancer. 9 Q. So, it wouldn't have been accurate, then, to 10 list it as a brain cancer in a mortality study? 11 A. That's correct. Because the analysis would be 12 based on the underlying cause of death. The primary 13 site. 14 Q. Let me hand you what was marked as PX 2. Would 15 you note on the front page whether or not this is an 16 interim report? 17 A. It says "final report." 18 Q. And if you would turn with me, please, to page 19 008, the Bates stamped page. The third full paragraph 20 down, does this -- does that indicate what type of study 21 this is? 22 A. Proportional mortality analysis. 23 Q. Okay. So, this is a proportional mortality 24 analysis study? 25 A. Right. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 345 1 Q. What is a proportional mortality analysis 2 study? 3 A. A proportional mortality study is not as good 4 as a cohort mortality study because the population at 5 risk is not defined in the proportional mortality study. 6 Basically, we compare the percentage of a certain cause 7 of death and not the risk of the rate of the disease. 8 Q. Okay. Thank you. 9 I'm going to hand you what's marked as PX 3. 10 Prior to your deposition, Dr. Wong, have you 11 ever seen that document in the state it's in there, with 12 the "DRAFT" sticker on it and the numerous handwritings 13 on the pages? 14 A. I don't remember seeing this. 15 Q. Okay. Dr. Wong, I'm going to hand you now 16 what's been marked as PX 4. 17 Prior to your deposition yesterday and today, 18 . had you had a chance to see a copy of this document as 19 it is before you today? 20 A. I might have seen a copy of this before. 21 Q. With the handwritten interlineations in it? 22 A. No, no, not with all the markings in the 23 report. 24 Q. Do you know whose handwriting that is? 25 A. I have no idea. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 346 1 Q. And this is -- what is this document? 2 A. This is the final report on the vinyl chloride 3 study submitted to CMA by Equitable Environmental 4 Health. 5 Q. Dr. Cooper's study that was eventually 6 published -7 A. Under his name, yes. 8 Q. Thank you. 9 I hand you what's marked as PX 5. Is that -10 is that the study by Dr. Mundt that was eventually 11 published by Dr. Mundt? 12 A. A much shorter version of that was published. 13 Q. Okay. And it's in that document and in his 14 study where he talks about the -- the difference between 15 the cohort size population in Dr. Cooper's and, later, 16 your study and then his study and the reason why it went 17 from 1,000 -- 10,173 people to, I believe, 10,019 18 people? 19 A. He discussed that. 20 Q. Okay. And is it unusual over a period of time, 21 in this instance, a 20-year follow-up, that as more 22 records become available that it's easier to discern 23 members of the cohort? 24 A. Well, in a study of this size especially, you 25 know, a lot of information, the demographic information, DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 347 1 was based on old employment records. Sometimes we 2 cannot see the handwriting or the typing or so on. So, 3 some information may not be a hundred percent accurate. 4 And whenever we do an update, sometimes we would be able 5 to go back and obtain additional information to clarify 6 some of the -- the records. 7 Q. Dr. Wong, I'm going to hand you what's marked 8 as PX 6, which purports to be a copy of the 9 International Agency for Research on Cancer's Monograph 10 on Vinyl Chloride Monomer, dated 1979; correct? 11 A. Yes. 12 Q. Does that monograph include in it a discussion 13 of the study sponsored by IARC that was published in 14 1991? 15 A. Of course not. 16 Q. That -- IN fact, that study, it's obvious, 17 dated February, 1979, doesn't include any of the current 18 science as the science exists from, obviously, prior to 19 publication date of that study through today's date; 20 correct? 21 A. Well, in fact, although the document was dated 22 1979, the meeting at IARC was held in February 1978. 23 So, any information subsequent to 1978 would not have 24 been included. 25 Q. Would it be reasonable for an epidemiologist DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 348 1 today to rely on a document dated February 1979 in 2 trying to determine whether or not there's a causal 3 association between vinyl chloride monomer and brain 4 cancer? 5 A. That would not be proper because we do have a 6 lot more information published since 1978. 7 Q. Dr. Wong, I want to hand you what's marked as 8 PX 8. 9 Do you recall that document? 10 A. Yes. 11 Q. That's a letter from Dow? 12 A. That's a letter from Dow to Dr. Milby. 13 Q. And I think if you look at the second page of 14 the document, it indicates that Dow is wanting to 15 protect employee confidentiality. 16 A. That's correct. 17 Q. Do you find, or have you found in your work as 18 an epidemiologist, that companies want to protect the 19 confidentiality of their employee information? 20 A. We run into that a lot. 21 Q. Dr. Wong, I'm going to hand you what's been 22 marked as PX 9. Do you recall reviewing that document 23 during your deposition? 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. Okay. What is Mr. Illes -- I believe is his DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 349 1 name -- with PPG, saying to you in that letter? 2 A. Well, basically, I asked him, in a letter that 3 he refers to in his letter, to provide us with some 4 information on 35 individuals, to identify or provide us 5 the identifier -- name and Social Security number and so 6 on -- so that we can use that information to go to the 7 National Death Index to determine whether they are still 8 alive or dead. 9 And as I testified this morning, in order to do 10 that, they have to match up the hire date, the birth 11 date, to identify what -- who those people were. And 12 basically, he is saying that we may not want to do this 13 because this takes too much time. 14 And he asked a question: Does it matter that 15 much that you update this 35 people in the study? Would 16 that have a major impact on your study if we do not 17 update the vital status of these 35 individuals? 18 And in fact, as I testified this morning, we 19 end up with about 800 people that we did not have 20 identifying information in our update to go outside and 21 obtain information to update their vital status. And 22 that -- that group of people, their vital status 23 remained the same as in the previous study. 24 Q. Okay. So, if they were determined to be alive 25 in the previous study, that was what you considered them DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 350 1 in your follow-up? 2 A. Right. And at the same time, in order to' 3 perform a proper calculation, we also terminate the 4 person years of observation at that time. 5 Q. Dr. Wong, I'm going to hand to you again what 6 was marked as Plaintiffs' Exhibit No. 4. This is a copy 7 of it. There was some concern in talking about -- this 8 is the Clark Cooper study. There was some concern that 9 there was a no-exposure group in the Cooper study. 10 Do you -- and he's talking about exposure 11 levels there on page 8 and page 9. Do you see in there 12 where he mentions that there was a no-exposure group? 13 A. No. He mentioned three exposure categories, 14 high, medium, and low. And in fact, the cohort 15 definition in the Cooper study was one year's -- one 16 year of exposure. 17 Q. Okay. Thank you. 18 Okay. Dr. Wong, I'm going to hand to you 19 what's marked as PX 13 and PX 14. And we -- you 20 discussed those documents this morning. 21 Could you describe PX 13, please. 22 A. Thirteen was a letter from Carol Stack. She 23 was in charge of the Vinyl Chloride Program at CMA at 24 that time. And the letter was addressed to the general 25 manager at one of the locations that we did the study. DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 351 1 Q. In the third paragraph, the last sentence in 2 the third paragraph on that letter, it talks about 3 the -- where it says, "The producers felt strongly that 4 a good retrospective mortality study would be an 5 invaluable reference in future vinyl chloride 6 litigation," do you see that? 7 A. That's correct. 8 Q. I believe you testified this morning that you 9 didn't have any conversations with either the CMA staff 10 or any of the CMA member companies regarding the vinyl 11 chloride litigation; correct? 12 A. I did not talk to them about that. 13 Q. Okay. All right. I want to bring your 14 attention now to PX 14. And look at the second 15 paragraph -- and this is a letter written to Mr. Ralph 16 Ferrel at Conoco Chemicals, under your signature; 17 correct? 18 A. Yes, sir. 19 Q. And it looks to me in the second paragraph that 20 the last sentence in that paragraph looks very similar 21 to the sentence we just talked about in -- in the letter 22 from the CMA; is that correct? 23 A. Yes. In fact, that is almost exactly the same 24 language. 25 The reason we put that in there is Carol Stack DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 352 1 used the possibility of using a good study to -- for 2 litigation purposes, in her letter, as an incentive for 3 the plant personnel to spend some time to provide us 4 with the information we need. And I just follow her 5 example, because it does take time to go back to old 6 employment records to match up the names with birthdays 7 and hire days. 8 So, I just used whatever I could to provide 9 some incentive for the people to help us. 10 Q. When you conduct an epidemiology study, do you 11 ever keep in the back -- do you ever think about whether 12 or not your study might be used in litigation or other 13 legal matters? 14 A. Yes. In reality, I mean, the studies are used 15 for litigation purposes. In fact, studies are used in 16 three areas: for public health, for regulation, and for 17 litigation. And it doesn't matter how they are used, as 18 long as we provide good science. I think we need good 19 science in all three areas. 20 Q. But you don't let litigation sway your thinking 21 with respect to a study one way or another, do you? 22 A. No, I don't. 23 MR. COLBERT: Dr. Wong, thank you very much. I 24 have no further questions. 25 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: This concludes Volume 2 to DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 353 1 the deposition of Dr. Otto Wong. The time is 11:13. 2 We're off the record. 3 (Discussion off the record.) 4 (Whereupon, Defendant's Exhibits No. 2A 5 and 6A were marked for identification.) 6 MR. COLBERT: We're attaching Exhibit 6A, which 7 is merely a copy of the front page of the American 8 Journal of Industrial Medicine. 9 THE WITNESS: The cover of the issue. 10 MR. COLBERT: Yes, cover page of the journal, 11 Volume 24, Number 2, 1993, which corresponds to the same 12 original journal that Dr. Wong held up, Volume 24, 13 Number 2, 1993. 14 In addition, we are adding what has been marked 15 as Exhibit 2A, which is a copy of the cover of the 16 American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Volume 20, 17 Number 3, 1991, in which his study, "An Industry-Wide 18 Epidemiology Study of Vinyl Chloride Workers," was first 19 published. 20 (Whereupon, the deposition was concluded at 21 11:16 a.m.) 22 23 OTTO WONG 24 25 DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II 354 1 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER 2 3 I, KAREN E. THOMPSON, a Certified Shorthand 4 Reporter of the State of California, do hereby certify: 5 That OTTO WONG in the foregoing 6 deposition named, was present and by me sworn as a 7 witness in the above-entitled action at the time and 8 place therein specified; 9 That said deposition was taken before me 10 at said time and place, and was taken down in 11 shorthand by me, a Certified Shorthand Reporter 12 of the State of California, and was thereafter 13 transcribed into typewriting, and that the foregoing 14 transcript constitutes a full, true, and correct record 15 of said deposition and of the proceedings which took 16 place; 17 That I am a disinterested person to the said 18 action. 19 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunder subscribed 20 my hand on this 18th day of March, 2002. 21 22 23 24 KAREN E. THOMPSON, CSR No. 2792 25 DEPOSITION OF OTTO WONG - VOLUME II