[ RadSafe ] Re: Shipyard worker study

[Keith Welch]

Thanks John,

The things I am wondering about (anecdotal information I've heard over 
the years) don't have anything to do with asbestos exposure, but I 
suppose that could be an issue.  However, I would think since asbestos 
illness is fairly well identifiable (from what I understand) that 
adjustments could be made for that.  It's hard to imagine that the 
existence of asbestos illness in shipyard employees makes them 
(generally) significantly less healthy than the general population.  I 
have obtained a copy of the study, and one day, maybe I'll get a chance 
to actually go through it and try to learn something.  My questions also 
had to do with review of the study by Cameron and Sponsler.  I don't 
recall seeing in that an indication that the unexposed cohort was less 
healthy than general population, but I haven't studied it closely or 
recently.  Does the shipyard study (or any other study) provide a 
mortality comparison of the unexposed cohort with "general population"?


John Jacobus wrote:
> Keith,
> Issues concerning the Navy nuclear shipyard study come
> up periocially.  Maybe yearly?  You may want to check
> the RadSafe achives.
>
> The primary flaw with the study is that the cohort,
> unexposed shipyard workers may not have been as
> healthy as members of the general population.  This
> may be due to asbestos exposures. 
>
> Of course, some still quote the "favorable" aspects
> while ignoring the question as to whether or not it is
> even a valid study.
>
> --- Keith Welch <welch at jlab.org> wrote:
>
>   
>> Folks,
>> I am not an epidemiologist and have no experience in
>> that field.  But 
>> recently, partly due to the posts here, I have been
>> wondering about 
>> this.  Maybe I just haven't thought it through well
>> enough.  It seems on 
>> its face that using cancer incidence rates would be
>> preferable to 
>> mortality, due in part to the issue of changes over
>> time in cure rates, 
>> but also because it would seem to help correct for
>> the healthy worker 
>> effect (incidence rate is not as affected by the
>> availability of health 
>> insurance or treatment as mortality rate) - and
>> possibly the "rich 
>> victim effect", which I have not heard many people
>> talk about, but 
>> assume must be confounding; the difference in cure
>> rates in different 
>> socio-economic classes.  I would suppose that could
>> probably be dealt 
>> with by careful cohort selection.  At any rate, I've
>> heard that the 
>> shipyard worker study was flawed due to the
>> following: (1) screening for 
>> nuclear workers at the shipyards disqualified people
>> with family history 
>> of cancer, and (2) removal of people from nuclear
>> worker status (and 
>> therefore, presumably from candidacy for the study?)
>> in the event they 
>> were diagnosed with cancer during employment.  Are
>> either of these based 
>> in fact?
>>
>>     
>
>
> +++++++++++++++++++
> "We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient --- that we are only 6 percent of the world's population; that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind; that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity; and therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem."
> -- John F. Kennedy 
>
> -- John
> John Jacobus, MS
> Certified Health Physicist
> e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com
>
>
>  
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