Government Urged To Warn on Radium - REPOST

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Thanks to Vincent King who informed me that part of the article 
was not printed, due to the word "from" at the beginning of the 
paragraph...

Monday April 26 1:53 AM ET 

Government Urged To Warn on Radium

By MELISSA B. ROBINSON Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Steve Culpepper had endured blinding 
headaches, double vision, brain surgery and the violent nausea of 
chemotherapy. Then a doctor connected his cancer to nasal 
radium treatments he received as a boy.  

Culpepper remembered that small amounts had been inserted 
through his nose to treat chronic ear infections, but he never 
worried about it as he grew older.  

Culpepper, who rarely got so much as a cold, had not had a 
physical in years, much less a consultation about an obscure Cold 
War-era medical procedure no longer used.  

``If someone had said anyone having these treatments in the '50s 
or '60s ought to immediately go see an ENT (ear, nose and throat) 
doctor, he would have gone,'' said Culpepper's widow, Patti, of 
Newport Beach, Calif. ``I know he would have gone.''  

Culpepper, 55, died in January after 16 months of treatment for 
nasopharyngeal cancer, which affects the nose and upper throat 
area.  

The government sees no need to warn former radium patients, a 
stand that enrages public health advocates.

``They're doing a great disservice to the population at risk and not 
meeting any of their responsibilities,'' says Stewart Farber, a 
Rhode Island public health scientist who has spent years 
researching the medical use of radium.  

>From the 1940s to the mid-1960s, it was common practice in 
civilian and military medicine to use nasal applicators containing 50 
milligrams of radium to shrink tissues at the entrance of the 
eustachian tubes. Those tubes help drain and balance pressure on 
the inner and outer ear.  

A typical regimen involved three to four treatments, of six to 12 
minutes each, a few weeks apart. Over that course, the tissues 
closest to the radium capsules would have received a radiation 
dose about 100 times greater than that received by survivors of the 
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  

Nasal radium was given mostly to military pilots and submariners 
troubled by drastic changes in atmospheric pressure and to 
children who suffered from colds, tonsillitis, ear infections and 
sinus or adenoid problems.  

The practice gradually was abandoned when the military started 
using pressurized aircraft cabins, effective new treatments such
as antibiotics were developed, and questions were raised about 
radiation's health effects.

Years later, radium patients are complaining of tumors, thyroid and 
immune disorders, brittle teeth and reproductive problems.

Public health advocates say the government should warn former 
radium patients that they could be at risk of contracting cancer or 
other diseases. They say notification could save lives by prompting 
people to get checkups or at least to discuss the matter with 
doctors.  

But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said diagnostic 
tests are unnecessary for anyone who does not show symptoms of 
a problem.  

``Current studies do not indicate substantial increases in risks for 
... disease among those who received NP (nasopharyngeal) radium 
treatments,'' the agency said in the March 29, 1996, edition of its 
weekly morbidity and mortality report.  

Farber contends CDC specialists are ignoring important evidence of 
radium's health risks.

``It's severely impeachable science,'' he said.

By the CDC's own estimate, as many as 2 million people were 
treated with nasal radium.

The government has taken some steps to help.

Last year, Congress required the Department of Veterans Affairs to 
provide health care to veterans who had radium treatments and 
were suffering head or neck cancer. But little has been done for 
civilians.  

The CDC has cited various studies, two of which dealt specifically 
with nasal radium.

One 1982 study in Maryland of hundreds of people who had nasal 
radium from 1943-60 found four cancer deaths - three of the brain 
and one of the soft palate - in the treated group, compared with 
none in people who were untreated as children. A follow-up study is 
awaiting agency review.  

Dr. Anne Mellinger-Birdsong of CDC's National Center for 
Environmental Health said the findings were too small to draw 
broad conclusions.  

Nevertheless, she said, ``If necessary, we're going to revise our 
recommendations.''

CDC's approach has not been completely hands-off. The CDC once 
urged patients who had nasal radium to tell their doctors and 
posted information about the treatment on the Internet.  

But what about those who do not remember?

Mellinger-Birdsong said most people probably will recall such an 
uncomfortable treatment and can get a physical if they are worried. 
 
If they do not remember, ``we don't feel it would be that harmful,'' 
she said.

The Culpeppers would disagree.

Before Steve Culpepper died in January, he told his family he was 
glad his mother was not around to see him suffer.

``He said, `Thank God my mother died,' so she wouldn't have felt 
the guilt for taking him for those radium treatments,'' Mrs. 
Culpepper said. 

Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -
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