Re: Testimony of Steve Wing to US House of Representatives

[Jim Muckerheide <jmuckerheide@delphi.com>]

Tom, Group,

Tom is right. But there is a study of effects of in utero x-rays that were NOT
given for medical indications.  In Chicago?, routine x-rays of mothers, late
'40s-early '50?  Only about 1000 cases?  Paper late '70s or '80s?  If anyone
knows the study, please reference it.  If anyone is interested, I'll try to
find it in my files.

By the way, no excess health effects reported, but not very clear
results/conclusions in a very large paper.

Regards, Jim
muckerheide@mediaone.net
Radiation, Science, and Health
==============================

Tom Mohaupt wrote:
> 
> RadSafers:
> My comments relating to Dr. Wing's testimony.
> 
> > Statement to the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the Committee on
> >  Science, United States House of Representatives, July 18, 2000
> >
> >  Steve Wing, Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, School of
> > Public
> >  Health, University of North Carolina
> >
> >   By far the most influential are studies of survivors of
> >  the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that are currently the primary basis
> > for cancer risk estimates.  However, the A-bomb studies are flawed due to
> > selective survival, poor dose measurement and confounding exposures (4-7).
> >  The atomic bombings produced massive immediate casualties as well as delayed
> >  deaths due to lingering effects of radiation, infectious epidemics, and the
> >  destruction of food, housing, and medical services (8).  Only the
> > healthiest survived these conditions, especially among those who are most vulnerable,
> > the young and the old.
> 
> It's interesting how he proposes this hypothesis as fact. This arguement
> was development as an alternative explanation for the lack of cancers in
> the low dose region from H/N bombings. Alice Stewart has used this
> arguement extensively.
> 
> >  Direct observation from low dose studies.
> >  In 1956 Dr. Alice Stewart and colleagues reported in The Lancet that fetal
> >  exposures during obstetric x-ray examinations are associated with elevated
> >  childhood cancer rates (15).  The fetus is especially sensitive to radiation due
> >  to rapid cell division.  Stewart's findings have been replicated in numerous
> >  other low dose studies (6, 16-18), and standards for medical practice now
> >  dictate that small doses of radiation associated with a single x-ray should
> > be avoided during pregnancy.
> >
> Dr. Wing fails to mention that prospective studies performs on children
> exposed to in utero x-rays and other sources of radiation have failed to
> support Dr. Stewart's findings. Also the Oxford Study of Childhood Cancers
> (OCSS)predicts that one of every 990 children who are x-rayed in utero will
> die of cancer and another will die of leukemia. (1) Applying this forecast
> to prospective studies yields far more hypothetical cancers than observed.
> For example, Court Brown and Doll (2) followed over 40,000 children who
> were x-rayed in utero. They found 9 deaths due to leukemia. The expectation
> value from normal incidence is 10.6 deaths from leukemia. Applying Knox's
> prediction, Court Brown should have seen 50 deaths from leukemia (i.e. 40
> due to x-ray plus 10 from natural incidence). Similar findings are observed
> when the OCSS prediction is applied to other prospective studies.   So why
> does the Oxford study predict far too many cancers?
> 
> Totter and MacPherson (3)contend that the physician's decision to order an
> x-ray was not a random process. They suggest that mothers in the case
> population needed far more medical care, including the drugs and x-rays,
> than the control mothers. Totter and MacPherson's concerns are supported by
> Gilman et al. (4).
> 
> (1) Knox, E., Stewart, A., Kneale, G. and Gilman, E., Prenatal Irradiation
> and Childhood Cancer, Journal of Radiological Protection, 7 (4) 1987, p.
> 177-192
> (2) Court Brown, W, Doll, R, Incidence of Leukaemia After Exposure to
> Diagnostic Radiation In Utero, Brit Med J, 11/26/1960, pp. 1539-1545
> (3) Totter, J., MacPherson, H., Do Childhood Cancers Result from Prenatal
> X-rays?, Health Phys. 40(4), 1981, pp. 511-524
> (4) Gilman, E., Wilson, L., Kneale, G., Waterhouse, J., Childhood cancers
> and thier association with prenancy drugs and illnesses.
> 
> Tom
> 
> Thomas Mohaupt, M.S., CHP
> tom.mohaupt@wright.edu
> 
> My opinion based my research of the subject matter. This correspondence may
> not reflect the opinion of my employer.
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