RE: Epidemiology and Nuclear Power Plants

["Heinmiller, Bruce" <heinmillerb@aecl.ca>]

Incidentally Dan, I found this email and its attachment compelling reading.
I referred the whole thing to several people here at Chalk River, including
one guy who reads trashy (in my opinion) stuff like New Scientist (a.k.a.
Nude Scientist) and believes everything he reads.  It's nice to see that
Austin Bradford Hill's criteria still appear to be the gold standard in
making judgments on causality.  This stuff should be required reading for
both anti-nuke kooks and hormesis advocates.  I was on a PEP course of your
a while back and found it a refreshing counterpoint to the hormesis drone.
Thanks for all the scoop.

--Bruce.

> ----------
> From: 	Strom, Daniel J[SMTP:daniel.j.strom@pnl.gov]
> Reply To: 	radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
> Sent: 	Wednesday, November 17, 1999 12:56 PM
> To: 	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: 	Epidemiology and Nuclear Power Plants
> 
> Amanda and RADSAFERs,
> 
> There is little *quality* epidemiology regarding populations around
> nuclear
> power plants.  One well-done study was published by Jablon et al. (1990),
> with
> follow-up articles in JAMA.  They found essentially nothing, on the whole.
> The
> problem is that these studies are of the ecological design, making control
> for
> confounders impossible.  For example, one of the plants with a
> standardized
> mortality ratio (SMR) greater than 1, namely Beaver Valley, is located in
> an
> area of heavy chemical industry, including a plant a few miles away that
> released, as I recall, 115,000 pounds of butadiene (an ACGIH Category A2
> carcinogen) to the atmosphere in 1990.  Inference of causation, if any, is
> pretty tough in a situation like this where chemical exposures are not
> reported
> along with proximity to the nuclear power plant.
> 
> Ecological studies assume that geographic proximity means higher dose, an
> assumption that may be true for some but not for others.  Also, for
> nuclear
> power plants, they ignore the well-established latent period between
> exposure
> and disease for cancer.
> 
> In my humble opinion, this stuff is virtually worthless, but it's the best
> we've
> got on this topic.  This kind of research does not meet the criteria cited
> in
> the London Principles (Federal Focus 1996) for use of epidemiology studies
> in
> risk assessment (now posted at Rob Stewart's site,
> http://www.pnl.gov/berc/epub/risk/epidprin.html ).
> 
> There are other studies by crackpot groups who draw their conclusions
> first and
> then try to find data to support them.  This is particularly true for the
> cancer
> cluster phenomenon (see Gawande 1999 for an excellent debunking of the
> cancer-cluster phenomenon).
> 
> References
> 
> Federal Focus Inc.  Principles for Evaluating Epidemiologic Data in
> Regulatory
> Risk Assessment.  Developed by an Expert Panel at a Conference in London,
> England, October 1995. Washington, DC: Federal Focus, Inc.; 1996.
> 
> Gawande,A.  The Cancer-Cluster Myth.  The New Yorker  LXXIV(45):34-37;
> 1999.
> 
> Jablon,S.; Hrubec,Z.; Boice,J.D., Jr.; Stone,B.J.  Cancer in Populations
> Living
> Near Nuclear Facilities. NIH Pub. No. 90-874.  Washington, DC: National
> Institutes of Health;  1990.
> 
> Jablon,S.; Boice,J.D., Jr.; Hrubec,Z.  Cancer in Populations Living Near
> Nuclear
> Facilities: A Survey of Mortality Nationwide and Incidence in Two States.
> Journal of the American Medical Association  265(11):1403-1408; 1991.
> 
> Howe,G.R.  Risk of Cancer Mortality in Populations Living Near Nuclear
> Facilities.  Journal of the American Medical Association
> 265(11):1438-1439;
> 1991.
> 
> - Dan Strom
> 
> The opinions expressed above, if any, are mine alone and have not been
> reviewed
> or approved by Battelle, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, or the
> U.S.
> Department of Energy.
> 
> Daniel J. Strom, Ph.D., CHP
> Risk Analysis & Health Protection Group, Environmental Technology
> Division,
> Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
> Mail Stop K3-56, PO BOX 999, Richland, Washington 99352-0999 USA
> Telephone (509) 375-2626 FAX (509) 375-2019 mailto:daniel.j.strom@pnl.gov
> Brief Resume: http://www.pnl.gov/bayesian/strom/strombio.htm
> Pagemaster for  http://www.pnl.gov/bayesian   http://qecc.pnl.gov
> http://bidug.pnl.gov
> 
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