Dr. Hofmeyr,
The screening process as I understood it was intended to eliminate those who could develop cancers. I would not say it was so reject unhealthly workers per se. I think you may know the process by the term "preventive medicine." In this case it was "preventive compensation" or "preventive lawsuit."
Interesting you mentioned radiophobia as a screening parameter. At another time, we had a person who did not want to work in the nuclear area due to his fear of radiation. However, when he found he had better promotion opportunites, due to a high turn of NWs, his radiophobia disappeared. (The high turnover of NWs was due to the pressure to get the repairs done underbudget and ahead of schedule. After a while, overtime is not that attractive.)
Dr Christoph Hofmeyr <chofmeyr@nnr.co.za> wrote:
Kai, John Jacobus,
Thanks for your comments. John, in your response you give some
indication of how the system operated. From another source (someone
that worked in RP at one of the shipyards) it is clear that the medical
screening was thorough for NWs, the qualification tests were harder,
people with any kind of radiophobia were disqualified from nuclear work
and any NW who developed any form of cancer was immediately taken off,
but could continue as NNW. He came to the conclusion that unhealthy
workers that would have been eliminated from the work force in the
private sector could stay in the NNW work force at the shipyard, because
it was difficult to fire federal employees with long tenure. It is
strange that these factors were apparently not picked up by the
designers of the study. The total study is available at
http://www.osti.gov/bridge/prod! uct.biblio.jsp?osti_id=10103020
Sponsler & Cameron wrote up a summary which you could request from John
Cameron
jrcamero@facstaff.wisc.edu
Chris Hofmeyr
chofmeyr@nnr.co.za