New Rocketdyne study -Reply

[Charles Willis <CAW@nrc.gov>]

Ruth,

Please do not give credence to the Rockedyne study until you have read it.  Quite a
bit has been said already on RADSAFE so I will only say that the investigators
telegraphed their intent by having activest Alice Stewart on the Advisory Panel,
having activist Douglas Crawford-Brown as a consultant, and not having anyone
with radiological expertise.  This group did essentially nothing to accomodate
confounding factors.  They did not even bother to include the occupational radiation
exposure received before the subjects came to Rocketdyne/Atomics International. 
They also found a single cancer death in a group to be statistically significant, with a
95% confidence interval.

Considering the people and the quality of the work, it is not surprising to find that
even though the Rocketdyne/AI workers were healther (less cancer and total
mortality) than either the US population or the reference worker population, the
investigators found cause for viewing the results with alarm.  

The report is unpublished, but I presume copys are available  from:

Dr. R. Harrison, Chief
Occupational Health Surveillance and Evaluation Program
Department of Health Services
Occupational Health Branch
2151 Berkeley Way, Annex 11, Third Floor
Berkeley, CA 94704

Enjoy,

Charlie Willis
caw@nrc.gov