Healthy Worker Effect and Nuclear Shipy

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

In response to Jerry Cuttler, Mort Goldman,

The "healthy worker effect" is a fiction re nuclear workers in
population/age-adjusted comparisons. 

As Jerry expects, in the NSWS, the 33,352 non-nuclear workers (NNW) had poorer 
health compared to the 39,004 NW. However, the NNW also had an all-cause SMR
of 1.00 (+- 0.03 at 95% C.I.) compared to the general population. THERE IS NO
HEALTHY WORKER EFFECT (which of course there can NOT be if you think about
comparing to *age-adjusted comparable populations*). 

The leukemia SMR to the population was 0.97 (+-0.42), lymphatic and
hematopoietic cancers 1.10 (+-0.27), lung cancer 1.15 (+-0.13) [significant],
and mesothelioma 2.54 (1.16, 4.43) [significant] from asbestos. So much for
"healthy worker effect", which is a fallacious "mantra" for the troops and the 
gullible unscientific public to ignore data. 

For cancer it is not at all reasonable to assume that there would be, when
considering the likelihood that, while there is "healthy worker effect" for
many diseases/disabilities, the idea that at hiring a person in their 20s or
30s there will be a lesser likelihood that for the population starting without 
cancer, with a 5-year  or 10-year or 15-year lag, the worker is less likely to 
have contracted cancer than the general population is downright silly. 

In fact, as the NSWS data can show, the industrial worker is exposed to MORE
cancer-causing agents and is more likely to have more cancer than the
comparable population, not less. (Remember, the "comparable population" are
people who did not have cancer, and got it later, age-adjusted, including the
lag.) Obviously if you include people who are not working today BECAUSE they
have cancer, then you will see the "health worker" effects. Of course today in 
the workforce we see many people who have had cancer who are still working! 

Note also that the public health establishment makes a crusade out of fixing
the cancer-causing industrial workplace; and in yesteryear there was obviously 
much MORE cancer-cusing chemical and other physiological stress exposures and
adverse conditions associated with causing cancer. (There would obviously be
an UNHEALTHY worker effect if the American Cancer Society and other
researchers are to be believed.) 

I suppose it would be redundant to point out here yet again that comparing the 
39,004 nuclear workers shows SIGNIFICANTLY lower all-cause mortality (0.76,
+-0.03 for NW >5mSv; and 0.81 +-0.05 for NW<5mSv) and some cancer mortalities
than the NNW, or the population! (With significantly higher mesothelioma, 5.49 
(3.03, 8.08) in NW>5, and 6.14 (2.48, 11.22) in NW<5, due to higher asbestos
exposure. THEREFORE, a 10 years and $10 million of US taxpayer-funded study,
competed in 1987, forced out with a press release in 1991, was spiked by DOE.  
It is still not published, BUT it is now "in the literature" because it was
referenced in UNSCEAR 1994 (over NCRP/BEIR objections)! 

It's the beginning of the end. Rad protection/health physics has a great
opportunity looming to recalibrate the massive costs of rad protection to save 
the public funds now being expended for no health or environmental benefit,
and to re-invigorate the contributions nuclear science and technology can make 
to a sustainable future for the world. Now that gov't no longer even has the
money to keep the researchers and nuclear professionals employed, it is time
to start breaking the shackles that they have put/are putting on the positive
contributions. 

The HPS Position Statement recognizing that the complete view of the
scientific data (including NSWS which confirms many other sources that utterly 
contradict the "linear model", to demonstrate that there is NO risk at
(conservatively!) <5 Sv in a year or 10 cSv lifetime, and
interventions/expenditures should/must be made accordingly if there is any
responsibility/integrity in the policies!  The HPS can lead this campaign (or
get run over by the science that is going to cause policy concerns about the
costs that hvae been foisted on the public in this exercise). 

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
jmuckerheide@delphi.com
Radiation, Science, and Health
=================================
> Does anyone know what was compared in the study on 700,000 nuclear shipyard 
> workers, carried out by the US Dept of Energy?
> 
> Did it compare the incidence of fatal cancer in workers who were exposed to 
> ionizing radiation with the incidence in workers who were not exposed?  What 
> were the results?
> 
> I suppose the people in both groups were "healthy workers".
> 
> Jerry Cuttler
>  ----------
> From: radsafe
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: Re: Healthy Worker Effect
> Date: Friday, March 22, 1996 3:59PM
> 
> The "healthy worker" effect is, as indicated, based on the fact that the
> worker population does not include the very young and the very old, 
> mortality
> and morbidity rates among whom are very much greater than those for the age
> groups between (say) 18 and 62 which are representative of the vast majority
> of individuals in the worker population.  Thus, comparisons of morbidity or
> mortality rates of worker populations with those of the general public are
> not valid UNLESS those rates are adjusted to recognize the differences in 
> age
> distributions (and hence age-related health effects) in the two populations.
> 
> Mort Goldman