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KMID : 0358119850110020083
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Journal of the Korean Public Health Association
1985 Volume.11 No. 2 p.83 ~ p.89
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LEUKEMIA AND CANCER MORTALITY IN CHILDREN (1947-1980), AND FETAL AND INFANT MORTALITY RATES-(1950-1980)
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Abstract
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Contamination of a major part of the Denver Metropolitan Area in Colorado by radioactive exhaust plumes from the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant (RFP) has been a matter of concern since this was discovered in 1970. The cancers in excess found in the exposed area were principally those of the more radiosensitive organs.
In this phase of the investigation, infant mortality rates in Jefferson and Denver counties (downwind of .RFP) were found to be below the U. S. average before RFP began operation, increasing to 14% above the U.S. infant mortality rate in 1957, the year that all of the filters in the main stack at RFP were blown out in an explosion. A similar increase was noted in the fetal mortality rates. Leukemia deaths in children, below U.S. rates in the five-year period before RFP began operation, were double the U.S. rate in the five-year period after the 1957 fire and explosion (14 cases observed, 7.2 expected). A similar increase was noted in Denver County. There was also an increase in the death rate in children from the four most important classes of cancer (brain, bone, kidney, and soft tissues). In Denver and Jefferson counties in the period 1952^-1966 (including 15 years of RFP operations) 116 children died of leukemia, compared to 86.3 expected cases, and 87 died of other cancer (brain, bone, kidney and soft tissue), compared to 48.8 expected cases; or, in toto, 203 deaths from leukemia and cancer, where 135 deaths ´were expected. The remarkable increases in numbers of infant deaths and especially of fetal deaths coincided with the beginning of uranium and plutonium-reprocessing operations of RFP.
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KEYWORD
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