OBJECTIVES To study the mortality from lung cancer from exposures to hard metal dust at an industrial site producing hard metals--pseudoalloys of cobalt and tungsten carbide--and other metallurgical products many of which contain cobalt. METHODS A historical cohort was set up of all subjects who had worked for at least 3 months on the site since its opening date in the late 1940s. A full job ...

Background—For most arrhythmia syndromes, the risk of sudden cardiac death for asymptomatic mutation carriers is ill defined. Data on the natural history of these diseases, therefore, are essential. The family tree mortality ratio method offers the unique possibility to study the natural history at a time when the disease was not known and patients received no treatment. Methods and Results—In ...

BACKGROUND Construction workers are potentially exposed to many health hazards, including human carcinogens such as asbestos, silica, and other so-called "bystander" exposures from shared work places. The construction industry is also a high risk trade with respect to accidents. METHODS A total of 19 943 male employees from the German construction industry who underwent occupational health ex...

1. Phenotypic flexibility in physiological, morphological and behavioural traits can allow organisms to cope with environmental challenges. Given recent climate change and the degree of habitat modification currently experienced by many organisms, it is therefore critical to quantify the degree of phenotypic variation present within populations, individual capacities to change and what their co...

Strains of Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae resistant to copper, streptomycin, or both compounds were recovered from symptomless and diseased tissue of four woody hosts in three nurseries in Oklahoma. In strains resistant to copper and streptomycin (Cur Smr), resistance to both compounds was cotransferred with a single plasmid which was either 68, 190, or 220 kilobase pairs (kb). All Cus Smr s...

This study examined the morbidity experience from 1981 to 1988 of a prospective cohort of 3422 refinery and petrochemical plant employees from the Shell Deer Park manufacturing complex. The morbidity data for this study, which include all illness and absence records in excess of five days, were extracted from the morbidity section of the Shell health surveillance system. Standardised morbidity ...

Analysts and decision makers frequently want estimates of the cost of technologies that have yet to be developed or deployed. Small modular reactors (SMRs), which could become part of a portfolio of carbon-free energy sources, are one such technology. Existing estimates of likely SMR costs rely on problematic top-down approaches or bottom-up assessments that are proprietary. When done properly,...

The study aims to survey the mortality from asthma in different occupations among Swedish men. The design was a register based cohort study where the smoking adjusted mortality due to asthma among Swedish men 1971-80 was investigated. For each occupation a smoking adjusted standardised mortality ratio (SMR) was calculated based on a linkage between official mortality statistics 1971-80 and occu...

We calculated, in narrow age bands, suicide rates for female prisoners compared with the general population between 1978 and 2004. The standardised mortality ratio (SMR) for suicide was 20.7 (95% CI 16.7-25.7), with a higher excess in younger women (<25 years, SMR=40 (95% CI 29-57); >or=25 years, SMR=20 (95% CI 15-26)). There was a trend over time for SMRs to have increased, supporting the need...

Airline cabin attendants are exposed to several potential occupational hazards, including cosmic radiation. Little is known about the mortality pattern and cancer risk of these persons. The authors conducted a historical cohort study among cabin attendants who had been employed by two German airlines in 1953 or later. Mortality follow-up was completed through December 31, 1997. The authors comp...