High Cancer Risk in US Naval Personnel Serving in Nuclear Powered Ships

Abstract

The USA Defense Threat Reduction Agency provided data in 2014 on the health status, including cancer, of the 4,843 sailors on the nuclear-powered United States Ship (USS) Ronald Reagan over the 2.55-year period from May 12, 2011 to Dec 31, 2013. Also provided were data on a matched control group of 65,269 US Navy personnel. Examination of the control population relative to the US national data gives a relative risk for all malignancies of RR = 9.2 (95% CI 8.48 < 9.2 < 9.96). The result suggests a significant cancer risk associated with serving on a nuclear-powered ship, one which is not predicted by the science underlying current radiation protection legislation.

Keywords:

• Environmental epidemiology
• radiation
• nuclear workers
• cancer
• radiation risk

Glossary

USS: United States Ship.

SEER: The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program of the US National Cancer Institute is a source of epidemiologic information on the incidence and survival rates of cancer in the United States. Visit: www.seer.cancer.gov.

ICRP: The International Commission on Radiological Protection is an independent source of advice on radiation risk. Its published risk model and general approach is the basis of legislation in the USA. It employs the concept of absorbed dose in Sieverts (Sv) which predicts cancer risk on the basis mainly of the lifespan study of the Japanese A-Bombs in 1945. Visit: www.icrp.org.

Disclosure statement

The author report no conflicts of interest. The author is alone responsible for the content and writing of the article.