The UK radium luminizer survey

The authors update previous analysis of mortality (Baverstock, Papworth and Vennart, 1981) in a population of women radium luminizers working in the U.K. between 1939 and the early 1960s for deaths up to January 1986, address the allegation that the survey suffers from bias due to selection effects and show that the highly significant deficit observed for causes of death other than cancer is likely to be due to a healthy worker effect. The previously reported excess of breast cancer in this population attributed to external exposure is no longer significant at the 5% level although the distribution of deaths from breast cancer with time since commencement of luminizing has a significant peak at 30-40 years. The lack of an excess of leukaemia is discussed in relation to the ability of bone seeking α-emitters to cause cancer originating in bone marrow. (author)