PRIVACY AGT MATERI AL REMOVED
State Insusance Fund requested the opinion of the medical director of the US.
Public Health Service as to whether or not the malignancy was due to radiation
exposure. In reply the following report was received:
which the
uranium mining to the time
employment in underground
this case
that
feel
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then
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years
at least 15
tumor was developed, is
feel that cause of cancer was
is compensable, for 1 would certainty
probably radiation.
This is-a cell type which has not been definitely associated with either
uranium mining of cigarette smoking. We are in the process of writing a
new paper on the cell type of lung cancer among uranium miners. This
new analysis again emphasizes the preponderance of small cell
undifferentiated. There are appreciable percentages of other cell types
which occur among the miners- even among the most heavily exposed.
Our present thinking is that radiation may cause any of the cell types,
but that they are much mote likely to produce the small cell
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undifferentiated types than the others.
Accordingly, { would not presently regard the cell type in this case as
a negative factor in deciding causation. Rather, { would regard it as
neutral with respect to both radiation and cigarette smoking, and make
the determination on other factors.
= ty te
in view of the relatively high radiation exposure (attested to by our
WLM estimate and by bone lead-210), the appropriate interval between
start of mining and lung cancer, and his relatively young age, it is my
opinion that 4
lung cancer was probably caused by his
occupational radiation exposure.
An inquiry concerningcell type was also made of the physician who did the
autopsy and he replied as follows:
I would classify the “Bronchilor (alveolar cell) carcinoma” as type
IHf, sub-type A, sub-type fF, (U1, A,!).
{ have never seen this type of carcinoma before in a uranium miner
exposed to radon gas but my experience in lung cancers in uranium
miners has been Hmited to two or three cases. | would doubt that this
type of tumor is often seen in uranium miners but then it is not a
common tumor of the lung and accounts for only 3-4% ofall malignant
tumors of the lung. Perhaps because of this rarity, it is rarely seen in
uranium miners, While | could aot inake a positive causal relation
between this type of malignancy and his exposure to radon gas in
uranium mining, | certainly could not exclude this possibility.
A further opinion was requested from a pathologist who had done a great
deal of research on the relationship between lung cancer and exposure to radon
daughters in uranium mining. In his reply he stated:
...1 have maintained that all people can develop an oat cell
carcinoma of the lung whether the individual is a miner or not, and
actually the degree of exposure should be the determining factor in
whether or not the case is compensable. From the.data you presented on
the lead and poloniumlevels, it is quite obvious with the support of
estimates of WLM of 2,850 that this case has sustained a tremendous
amount of radiation,
If the latent period, that is the time from the beginning of
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