Re: We are killing nuclear workers!

["Otto G. Raabe" <ograabe@ucdavis.edu>]

At 12:55 AM 1/5/01 -0600, Herman Cember wrote:
>
>I believe that the enrichment plants had radiation safety programs.  I also 
>believe that the best defense of the health and safety record of workerss in 
>the nuclear industry is to poin out that all the studies (of whch I know) 
>find the standard mortality ratios (SMR) for workers in nuclear facilities, 
>including laboratories, production facilities, and nuclear power plants, to 
>be much less than 1.  I believe that the SMR's for all causes of death run
on 
>the order of 0.8 - 0.9.  Am I correct in my figures?  I also believe that
the 
>next worker to die from radiation in the United States commercial nuclear 
>power industry will be the first one.  This certainly cannot be said of the 
>safety record of the fossil fuel generating stations.
>                                                             Herman Cember
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January 5, 2001
Davis, CA

Yes, but the answer that is usually given is that this is the "healthy
worker effect". Nuclear workers were healthy when hired and they got good
health care benefits from their employment. Because of this assumption,
most epidemiological studies of nuclear workers compare those with "high"
doses to those with "low" doses and ignore SMR's. That is also what has
been done in the atomic bomb survivor studies by RERF.

Otto
**********************************************
Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
Institute of Toxicology & Environmental Health
(Street Address: Bldg. 3792, Old Davis Road) 
University of California, Davis, CA 95616
E-Mail: ograabe@ucdavis.edu
Phone: (530) 752-7754   FAX: (530) 758-6140
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