Some history Re:Najarian and the OLD Portsmouth Naval ShipyardStudy

Linda Sewell wrote: So, a couple of questions to the group out there. Does anyone have any details on this early Portsmouth Naval Shipyard study? Does anyone have any information on Dr. Najarian's involvement with this study? I did an internet search that took me to Ernest Sternglass's website, but that only led me to a footnote reference. Otherwise, the internet didn't appear to turn up much information.

Dr. Thomas Najarian, a hematologist, was in the news about 1978 for his claim that the Portsmouth shipyard workers had five times as many leukemia deaths than normal. This is described on pages 103-108 in the autobiographical book by Ralph Lapp: My Life with Radiation: The Truth about Hiroshima Med Phy Publ (MPP) Madison,WI 1995.(Lapp and Andrews wrote one of the first books on health physics.)

Chapter 8 on Radiation Controversies in Lapp's book has a fairly complete discussion of Najarian's involvment in the Portsmouth fiasco and a few later episondes, one being a charge that the nuclear shipyard worker study was seriously in error. I was the president of MPP in 1993 and I encouraged Lapp to write the book. I am the president of MPP at the time. If you plan to write a book suitable for MPP send information to Betsey Phelps, Editor in Chief e-mail: betsey@medicalphysics.org

I summarize Lapps material: Najarian was a hematologist in the area of theshipyard. Early in 1978 one of his patients from the shipyard had leukemia. The patient said he wasn't surprised because many men at the shipyard died early of cancer. Najarian called the shipyard but the Navy who ran the yard refused to cooperate. Najarian then called the Boston Globe and a group of reporters studied the death certificates of 1722 people in the area fo the shipyard who potentially worked at that shipyard. They narrowed it down by calls to relatives of the deceased to identify105 shipyard workers. Of the 105 workers, Najarian found six leukemia fatalities, five times more than one would expect. This was described as an epidemic of leukemia on the front page of the Boston Globe. Naturally the politicians got into the act with congressional hearings. Najarian was the star witness. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and NIOSH did a complete study of the cancer incidence at the shipyard at a cost of $1 million. They studied deaths at the Portsmouth yards from 1952-1977 and found that leukemia and cancer was slightly lower in the nuclear workers at the yards than among the non-nuclear workers but the difference was not statistically significant. This flap probably inspired the very large nuclear shipyard workers study (NSWS) from 1980-1988. The detailed results of which have not been published.

In the fall of 1991 the DOE did a news release of the final report of the nuclear shipyard worker study (NSWS) which is the largest study of radiation workers ever done. The DOE news release in September 1991 was very misleading. My web page has a copy of the unpublished article on the NSWS by Ruth Sponsler and I as well as the misleading DOE news release and my version of what the news release should have said. The New York Times published a report on the NSWS but I neversaw it. The New York Times also quoted Najarianwho extensively criticized the NSWS.

Those in terested in my book review of the biogoraphy of KZ Morgan , can find it at http://www.medphysics.wisc.edu/~jrc/rev8.htm The review was published in 21st Century Science and Technology under the healdline : A Flawed History of Radiation Protection I did not choose the headline but I agree with it. I am not aware of any other reviews of the book.

John R. Cameron (jrcamero@wisc.edu)
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Visit the Virtual Radiation Museum (VRM) at http://www.medphysics.wisc.edu/~vrm
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