Re: Babies Affected by Dads' X-Ray Exams

[John Goldsmith <gjohn@bgumail.bgu.ac.il>]

David:
     Gardner, himself, unfortunately  died of cancer.  But as to his 
conclusions, a great deal depends on whom you ask.  Gardner did not presume
a mechanism, and so direct exposure could not be distinguished from
possible fetal exposure from isotopes brought home on clothing.
(an example of indirect exposure).  Work since Gardner's has made it
clear to most of us, that the effects cannot be extrapolated to all
children of workers at nuclear processing. Nor does it follow that X-Ray
exposures were the acive agents. 
But I believe Gardner's conclusions as to Seascale were correct. 
           John Goldsmith, M.D., M.P.H., Professor of Epidemiology
On Sun, 23 Mar 1997, David Hambley wrote:

> 
> 
> At 17:53 20-03-97 -0600, Charles Meyer  wrote:
> >
> >>Was there not a study done a few years ago, at Sellafield, or somewhere of
> >>that sort, that purported to show something similar? I.e., that irradiation
> >>of fathers, shortly before conception, led to some (I don't remember what)
> >>outcome in their progeny.
> >
> >I believe the conclusions of that report were found to be 
> >inconceivable, 'scuze the pun.
> >
> The Gardner report on incidence of Leukemias near the Sellafield
> reprocessing plant (1990) reported a weak statistical link between childhood
> leukemia and a number of parental occupations, one of which was employment
> at Sellafield.  The study concluded that there was a weak statistical link
> between the father's pre-conception dose and childhood leukemia.  At the
> time of the report it was acknowledged that there was no known biological
> mechanism which would account of for the statistical link and the
> significance of the link was based on only 4 cases.  Martin Gardner did
> acknowledge that the results represented a weak statistical link which may
> or may not indicate a real relation and that further work was required to
> investigate the postulated link.  (The media did not however get this point
> across when the study results were released)
> 
> The UK Health and Safety Executive conducted a more detailed case control
> study to follow up on the results of the Gardner study (1993).  This showed
> that no link with pre-conception dose generally but showed a possible link
> between pre-conception dose for fathers who lived in Seascale.   
> 
> This, unfortunately, is all the details I can remember.  But the gist is
> that the Gardner study, although famous (or infamous) is now acknowledged to
> have been incorrect in its conclusions.
> 
> David Hambley
> 
> 
> David I Hambley
> Senior Safety Engineer, Nuclear Safety Unit
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