Cancer Assessment Press Release

[Andy Hull <hull@mail.sep.bnl.gov>]

Delivery-date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:50:01 -0500
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:44:15 -0500>>Reply-To: karav@bnl.gov
Sender: owner-broadcast-l@bnl.gov
From: Kara Villamil <karav@bnl.gov>
To: "BNL Labwide Broadcasts" <broadcast-l@bnl.gov>
The following news release (below) is being issued today by the U.S.
Department of Energy. The announcement is timed to coincide with today's
employee meetings on environmental health issues, including the cancer
assessment described below. 

A videotape of this morning's meeting will be shown on the kiosk in Berkner
Hall, and on the WBNL web page, http://www.wbnl.bnl.gov/, starting
tomorrow. A complete account of the presentations will be published on page
2 of tomorrow's Bulletin. And a Web page with the presentations, as well as
questions and answers related to these issues, will be created  and linked
from the Public Affairs home page at http://www.pubaf.bnl.gov. 

 ----------------------------------------------------

Issued Jan. 29, 1998

NY STATE CANCER REGISTRY TO LOOK AT CANCER RATES 
AMONG 21,000 PAST AND CURRENT BNL WORKERS

UPTON, NY - The New York State Cancer Registry will soon begin compiling
reliminary cancer rates among the 21,263 people who have worked at the U.S.
Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory since 1947.
The Cancer Registry will begin by cross-referencing the names of former and
current BNL workers with the names in its database of all New Yorkers
diagnosed with cancer between 1979 and 1993, the latest year for which data
are available.
	The Cancer Registry will then calculate rates for all types of cancer in
BNL workers who were alive and living in New York during that period, and
compare them with rates from Long Island and the entire state.  The results
should be available in mid-1998.
	"While this assessment is not a formal epidemiological study, it will give
us an indication of general cancer trends in this population," said Dean
Helms, executive manager of DOE's Brookhaven Group.  "We should be able to
see if there are any significant deviations from average cancer rates found
on Long Island and in New York."
	The assessment is in addition to the yearly health surveillance of the
current BNL work force that has been performed by DOE since 1992.  Those
studies have shown that today's Brookhaven employees are, on average,
healthier than the norm.  But no study has ever examined the larger
population of all those who have ever worked at BNL.
	Preparations for the assessment began in 1996 after an employee request.
DOE and BNL then began the task of creating a database of current and
former employees.  That database was then provided to DOE's Office of
Epidemiologic Studies, which will turn it over to the New York State Cancer
Registry next week.
	Helms stressed that the assessment will not correlate cancer cases with
employees' work histories, including exposure to radiation.  But, he said,
a full epidemiological study could be considered by the National Institute
for Occupational Safety & Health if the assessment's results indicate that
further study is warranted.
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