[ RadSafe ] Re: Shipyard worker study - NO Unhealthy Controls!

[welch at jlab.org]

Rainer,

Thank you for the information.  I admit to rendering the questions in an
overly-simplistic fashion.  But I was trying to get some "baseline"
understanding established for myself.  Even a quick look at the tables and
data from the study makes it clear that it is difficult to make sweeping
generalizations or simple conclusions.  I've learned a lot from the
responses here, and it has made me much more aware that I need to study
the literature more fully and avoid oversimplification.

Keith Welch

> Howard, (Keith),
>
> The SMRs reported in Matanoski's work were determined by comparison with
> the white-male general population!
>
> <quote>The risk of death during follow-up was compared to 1970 U.S. white
> male lifetable probabilities.<endquote> (p. 7 in 1.1 Introduction/Overview
> of: Matanoski Genevieve M, Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation in
> Shipyard Workers. DOE Contract Number: DE-AC02-79EV10095, Final Report
> DOE/EV/10095--T2, The Johns Hopkins University, Department of
> Epidemiology, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland,
> June 1991)
>
> The attached (PDF-file) table is an excerpt from Matanoski's report and
> supports to some extent the claim that the Non-Nuclear-Workers (NNW) were
> - with respect to selected(!) diseases - less healthy than U.S. white-male
> (USWM), in particular with respect to "all malignancies" and within this
> class with respect to "non-respiratory malignancies". With respect to
> "circulatory" diseases (where predominantly one would expect to see a
> healthy worker effect), the NNW (and the nuclear workers even more so) did
> indeed display a marked healthy worker effect in dying significantly less
> frequent than USWM. The overall mortality of NNW from all causes was
> indistinguishable from USWM. With respect to "respiratory malignancies",
> all(!) worker groups showed an increased mortality with respect to USWM
> which was statistically significant for all workers pooled together and
> nearly so for NNW. Regarding the nuclear workers, this is in contrast to
> the several chronic radiation exposure epidemiological studies where
> reduced mortality is observed most frequently for lung cancer!
>
> In this regard, both your and even more so John Jacobus' rendering of
> Matanoski's data appear too simplistic.
>
> Sometime ago I distributed a graph in a PDF-file displaying the Matanoski
> data for these mayor findings. If someone likes to see it he may send me
> his request.
>
> Best regards, Rainer
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> Von: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl im Auftrag von howard long
> Gesendet: Fr 09.02.2007 18:32
> An: welch at jlab.org
> Cc: Keith Welch; radsafe at radlab.nl
> Betreff: [ RadSafe ] Re: Shipyard worker study - NO Unhealthy Controls!
>
>
>
> No, Keith, you assume incorrectly. SMR 1.00 means what Hiserodt wrote,
> below:
>   The OBSERVED death rate in the control [No rad.] group of workers
> happened to be identical to the B Vital statistics for the general
> population. It was NOT simply taken as a convenient (but not identical)
> control!
>
>   This also confirms that there was NOT an "unhealthy control group",
> another distraction that JJ attempted, despite exposure to asbestos and
> slightly increased deathrate from (rare) mesothelioma for all of the
> shipyard workers.
>
>   Read the original data, conveniently organized in "Underexposed - "!
>   Promote hormesis to liberate nuclear power!
>
>   Howard Long
>
> welch at jlab.org wrote:
>   I assumed that the SMR being equal to 1.00 was because it was simply
> "defined" as the baseline. In other words the non-exposed workers were
> being defined as the "general population" to which the nukes were
> compared. That sounds consistent with what Ruth Sponsler said.
>
> Keith Welch
>
>> "-it is seen that the Nones group has a SMR of 1.00. This means it
>> exactly
>> corresponds with the general population data - US B Vital Statistics"
>> Hiserodt
>>
>> The controls of the NSWS were like the exposed and the general
>> population.
>> However, the rare mesthelioma deaths were 3-5 x for all, perhaps from
>> asbestos exposure. They are so few (18, 8, 10 in >.5, <.5, No extra rem)
>> that it does not affect this vast study with 2,797, 1,168 and 4,453
>> deaths, respectively.
>>
>> Howard Long
>>
>
>
>
>
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