New study: Nuclear workers at higher risk for cancer - Brattleboro Reformer - 0 views
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Energy Net on 06 Jul 09Are nuclear power plant workers at higher risk to die of cancer? A study conducted by a Canadian researcher concluded the risk is substantially higher to them than to the general public. The document, "Exposure to Radiation and Health Outcomes" was made public last week. It was written by Mark Lemstra, who was formerly a senior research epidemiologist for the Saskatoon, Canada, Health Region. Lemstra left -- or was relieved of, depending on which source you read -- his job last year after a dispute over a report he authored that documented the health disparities between different socioeconomic categories in Saskatoon. In the radiation report, in which Lemstra reviewed 1,725 articles related to radiation studies, he concluded that nuclear power plant workers have a "relative excess risk" of getting cancer. In epidemiology, excess risk is defined as the difference between the proportion of subjects in a population with a particular disease who were exposed to a specific risk factor and the proportion of subjects with that same disease who were not exposed.
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Energy Net on 06 Jul 09Are nuclear power plant workers at higher risk to die of cancer? A study conducted by a Canadian researcher concluded the risk is substantially higher to them than to the general public. The document, "Exposure to Radiation and Health Outcomes" was made public last week. It was written by Mark Lemstra, who was formerly a senior research epidemiologist for the Saskatoon, Canada, Health Region. Lemstra left -- or was relieved of, depending on which source you read -- his job last year after a dispute over a report he authored that documented the health disparities between different socioeconomic categories in Saskatoon. In the radiation report, in which Lemstra reviewed 1,725 articles related to radiation studies, he concluded that nuclear power plant workers have a "relative excess risk" of getting cancer. In epidemiology, excess risk is defined as the difference between the proportion of subjects in a population with a particular disease who were exposed to a specific risk factor and the proportion of subjects with that same disease who were not exposed.