[ RadSafe ] U.S. Nuclear Power Industry Workers Study - Table 2

[John_Sukosky at dom.com]

Below, I've reproduced Table 2 from the "Analysis of the
Mortality Experience amongst U.S. Nuclear Power Industry
Workers after Chronic Low-Dose Exposure to Ionizing Radiation".
(Howe, et al., 2004)

Based on these results, the authors stated that: "...The cohort
displays a very substantial  healthy worker effect, i.e.,
considerably lower cancer and noncancer mortality than the
general population...".

Does anyone know why a comparison cannot be made to non-nuclear
power plant workers employed during the same period in order to
account for this "very substantial healthy worker effect"?


John M. Sukosky, CHP
Dominion
Surry Power Station
(757)-365-2594 (Tieline: 8-798-2594)


TABLE 2
U.S. Nuclear Power Industry Workers Study (Howe et al., 2004):
Standardized Mortality Ratios (SMRs) by Cause of Death, 1979–1997

Cause                            Observed Expected(a) SMR    95%CI
All causes                        1,190    2922.4    0.41  0.38, 0.43
  All solid cancers                 368     564.3    0.65  0.59, 0.72
    Stomach cancer                   16      19.7    0.81  0.47, 1.32
    Colon cancer                     36      47.8    0.75  0.53, 1.04
    Pancreatic cancer                18      29.0    0.62  0.37, 0.98
    Lung cancer                     125     210.4    0.59  0.49, 0.71
    Prostatic cancer                 14      23.2    0.60  0.33, 1.01
    Kidney cancer                    14      17.7    0.79  0.43, 1.32
    Brain and other CNS(b)cancer     23      27.0    0.85  0.54, 1.28
All lymphopoietic cancer             49      75.7    0.65  0.48, 0.86
    Multiple myeloma                  6       9.5    0.63  0.23, 1.37
    Leukemia                         29      27.2    1.07  0.71, 1.53
    All noncancers                  773    2282.3    0.34  0.32, 0.36
    Nervous system diseases          20      39.9    0.50  0.31, 0.77
    Circulatory system diseases     350     832.7    0.42  0.38, 0.47
    Arteriosclerotic heart
    disease including CHD(c)        248     524.6    0.47  0.42, 0.54
All vascular lesions of CNS          24      89.5    0.27  0.17, 0.40
All respiratory diseases             37     129.1    0.29  0.20, 0.40
All pneumonia                         8      48.1    0.17  0.07, 0.33
Digestive system diseases            32     148.9    0.21  0.15, 0.30

(a) Expected number of deaths based on age-, gender-, calendar year-
    and cause-specific mortality rates for the U.S. population during
    1979–1997.
(b) Central nervous system.
(c) Coronary heart disease.