SANTA SUSANA FIELD LABORATORY EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY, PART II: EXPOSURES TO SELECTED CHEMICALS
<-- LA Rocketdyne Nuclear Meltdown
Download: EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY (PDF)
SANTA SUSANA FIELD LABORATORY
EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY:
REPORT OF THE OVERSIGHT PANEL
SEPTEMBER 1997
OVERSIGHT PANEL MEMBERS
Daniel Hirsch, Co-Chair *
Committee to Bridge the Gap, Los Angeles, California
David Michaels, Ph.D., Co-Chair *
Department of Community Health and Social Medicine, City University of New York Medical
School, New York, New York
Jack Geiger, M.D. *
Department of Community Health and Social Medicine, City University of New York Medical
School, New York, New York
Robert Goble, Ph.D. *
Center for Technology Environment and Development and Department of Physics, Clark
University, Worcester, Massachusetts
Barbara Johnson *
Rocketdyne Cleanup Coalition, Santa Susana, California
Caesar Julian, M.D. *
Simi Valley, California
Franklin E. Mirer, Ph.D. *
International Union - United Auto Workers, Detroit, Michigan
Ana Maria Osorio, M.D. **
Occupational Health Branch, California Department of Health Services, Berkeley, California
Gerald Petersen, Ph.D. ***
United States Department of Energy, Germantown, Maryland
Sheldon C. Plotkin, Ph.D. *
Southern California Federation of Scientists, Los Angeles, California
Jerry Raskin, Ph.D. *
Rocketdyne Cleanup Coalition, Santa Susana, California
Robert Rinsky *
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Cincinnati, Ohio
Noah Seixas, Ph.D. *
Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Community Medicine,
University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
Alice Stewart, M.D. *
Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham,
United Kingdom
* Voting member.
** Non-voting member on the choice of the study contractor. Voting member on other matters.
* * * Non-voting member.
SANTA SUSANA FIELD LABORATORY EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY:
REPORT OF THE OVERSIGHT PANEL
The Study's Findings
The primary question the study was designed to answer was whether
workers at Rocketdyne/AI's nuclear sites have experienced excess deaths from
cancer associated with their work-related exposures to radiation. The answer is
yes.
The study found:
- Exposure of workers at SSFL to external (penetrating) radiation
was associated with an elevated rate of dying from cancers of the
blood and lymph systems and from lung cancer.
- Cancer death rates for all cancers and for "radiosensitive" solid
cancers were found to increase as external radiation dose
increased.
Increased doses of internal radiation (i.e. from radioactive
materials that were inhaled or ingested) similarly resulted in
increased mortality rates for blood and lymph system cancers and
for cancers grouped together by the investigators as the upperaero-
digestive tract, including cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx,
esophagus, and stomach. 27.3% of the cancer deaths among
workers with measurable internal radiation exposures were
attributable to their workplace exposures to radiation.
The study results were primarily obtained by comparing higher exposed
groups to lower exposed groups of the same worker population, which provides
substantial power to the conclusions. Furthermore, although it isn't possible to
completely rule out the possibility of confounding effects, the study found no
evidence of any factor such as smoking or chemical exposure that could be
responsible for the radiation impact seen.
The study also examined several issues of broader implication regarding
risks associated with radiation exposure, making the following important
findings:
- Although the cancer deaths at SSFL attributable to radiation
exposure were dose-related, they occurred at doses substantially
below those considered permissible by official U.S. and
international regulatory bodies, thus raising questions about the
adequacy of current regulations.
- The excess relative risk of "low-dose" radiation was at least
6 to 8 times greater than risks previously assumed on the basis of
atomic bomb survivor data.
- There is an age effect - e.g., older adults (over 49 years old) are
more at risk from radiation than younger ones for all cancers and
for "radiosensitive" solid cancers, including lung cancers.
The SSFL study lends support on many of these points to recent work by
Steve Wing, and George Kneale and Alice Stewart. It is noteworthy that many of
the important findings of the SSFL study could be made because of the long
follow-up period - permitting the detection of long-latency cancers that appear
many years after radiation exposure, which might have been missed in studies
with shorter follow-up times, as well as permitting a better view of any age
effect. This strongly argues for continued follow-up not only of the SSFL
workers but of all radiation-exposed cohorts at other nuclear-related facilities,
including many in which no or few effects had been found in studies of shorter
follow-up duration.
Download: EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY (PDF)
<-- LA Rocketdyne Nuclear Meltdown
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