Authors’ Response: Solid Cancer Mortality Among US Radiation Workers

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bertke S ; Daniels, Robert D. ; Kelly-Reif K ; Richardson DB ; Schubauer-Berigan, Mary K.
• Description:
  We thank Dr Wakeford for his interest in our paper and agree that our recent report on solid cancer mortality among 101 363 US nuclear workers provides new and relevant information on risks from protracted low-dose ionizing radiation.1 With this in mind, we chose to publish risk estimates that best inform contemporary radiation exposures. We intentionally featured results restricted to this large subset of contemporary workers employed in 1960 or later, who have lower average exposures and higher-quality exposure measurement records when compared with earlier hires. The average exposure among early workers was three times that of contemporary workers (34.9 Sv and 11.6 Sv respectively, when including workers with no recorded dose). It is well documented that exposure estimates for early workers tend to have several weaknesses in comparison with contemporary workers. For this reason, we reported findings on the contemporary sub-cohort but did not provide complementary information on those hired prior to 1960. We agree that more research is needed to better understand the discordance in risk estimates between early and later hires. However, that investigation was beyond the scope of our paper. Differences in risk estimates between subgroups likely reflect important but undefined differences in the groups themselves which are not necessarily limited to sources of dose estimation error. Future efforts could entail further investigation of these differences. Early nuclear workers' exposure measurements are subject to various uncertainties and biases, which are difficult to quantify and limit causal inference. Fortunately, we were presented with a unique opportunity to examine a large, well-enumerated contemporary group of workers with improved and more relevant exposure measurements and relatively lengthy follow-up. Our findings within this contemporary group clearly indicate that workers exposed to protracted low-dose ionizing radiation exposure are at risk of solid cancer and some subtypes. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Cohort Studies Epidemiology Mortality Neoplasms Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Cancer Rates Cohort Studies Ionizing Radiation Mortality Rates Nuclear Energy
• ISSN:
  0300-5771
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  California ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 5 ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DFSE - Division of Field Studies and Engineering ; WTCHP - World Trade Center Health Program
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  52
• Issue:
  6
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20068515
• Citation:
  Int J Epidemiol 2023 Dec; 52(6):1994-1995
• Contact Point Address:
  Kaitlin Kelly-Reif, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 1090 Tusculum Ave, MS-R14, Cincinnati, OH 45226, USA
• Email:
  kkelly-reif@cdc.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2024
• NORA Priority Area:
  Manufacturing
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  International Journal of Epidemiology
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:0bc0f8aadb1779c2052d476ea652c3f788d0321b37232ad4e5b7c888d93a71110bd017b467b366a2d5c51357c499b2be0a7d0a970b329dfaf524c8bb08784348
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/207131/cdc_207131_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 176.08 KB ]