Lung cancer mortality among nonsmoking uranium miners exposed to radon daughters
R. J. Roscoe, K. Steenland, W. E. Halperin, J. J. Beaumont and R. J. Waxweiler
Division of Surveillance, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Cincinnati, Ohio 45226.
Radon daughters, both in the workplace and in the household, are a
continuing cause for concern because of the well-documented association
between exposure to radon daughters and lung cancer. To estimate the risk
of lung cancer mortality among nonsmokers exposed to varying levels of
radon daughters, 516 white men who never smoked cigarettes, pipes, or
cigars were selected from the US Public Health Service cohort of Colorado
Plateau uranium miners and followed up from 1950 through 1984. Age-specific
mortality rates for nonsmokers from a study of US veterans were used for
comparison. Fourteen deaths from lung cancer were observed among the
nonsmoking miners, while 1.1 deaths were expected, yielding a standardized
mortality ratio of 12.7 with 95% confidence limits of 8.0 and 20.1. These
results confirm that exposure to radon daughters in the absence of
cigarette smoking is a potent carcinogen that should be strictly
controlled.
