| |
            
|
August 9, 1999 Private scientist faults V.A. over radium studyBy MELISSA B. ROBINSON Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - A public health scientist who has spent years investigating nasal radium treatments on veterans and children is criticizing the Department of Veterans Affairs' recent study on submariners. Stewart Farber, of Warren, Vt., said the VA diluted its results by including 770 men in its treated group who may never have had nasal radium at all. ``The treated group invalidates the entire study,'' said Farber, who started the nonprofit Radium Experiment Assessment Project to promote greater public awareness of nasal radium's potential health risks. The VA study, released last week by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., found that Navy submariners may be at higher risk for cancer if they got nasal radium in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Nasal radium was given to thousands of military submariners, divers and pilots who were troubled by drastic changes in atmospheric pressure. Many submariners were treated while training in Groton, Conn. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that as many as 2 million civilians were also treated, mostly as children for colds, tonsillitis, ear infections and sinus or adenoid problems. Typically, applicators containing 50 milligrams of radium were inserted into the nostrils to shrink tissues at the entrance of the eustachian tubes, which help drain and balance pressure on the inner and outer ear. A typical military regimen consisted of three to four treatments, each lasting up to 12 minutes, a few weeks apart. Eventually, radium treatments were abandoned as antibiotics were developed, the military went to pressurized aircraft cabins and questions were increasingly raised about radiation's health effects. In recent years, former radium patients have come forward to complain of tumors, thyroid and immune disorders, brittle teeth and reproductive problems. The VA study compared deaths among 1,214 submariners who had the treatment vs. deaths in a control group of 3,176 randomly selected veterans who were not treated. It found a 47 percent increased risk of deaths from head and neck cancers in submariners who were treated, as well as a higher, overall death rate. But Farber said the treated group should have been much smaller, because only 431 of the 1,214 men - who were identified from a log book kept at the Groton naval base - actually had an ``R'' notation by their names, indicating radium was administered. Another 13 were found to have radium from other records. That amounts to a total group of 444 men who definitely had the treatment, said Farber. Comparing those to thousands of untreated men would have yielded stronger conclusions of radium's potential harm, he said. The VA acknowledges the difficulty of determining just who was treated with radium, given the sloppiness of records. ``Looking at what the best population is to study is very problematic,'' said Terry Jemison, a department spokesman. In the study, the department says it would have been too easy to miscalculate the treated group by using only the ``R'' notation. It used all 1,214 men because logbook researchers believed those men were the same ones described in a 1946 research study on nasal radium's effectiveness by Dr. Henry Haines, who administered treatments at the base. Farber said all those men couldn't possibly have had radium because Haines didn't begin using radium until 1945, while the logbook men enlisted as early as 1944.
Copyright 1999 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
| |||||||
