Abstract
A review of death certificates in New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts for 1959-77 yielded a total of 1722 deaths among former workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard where nuclear submarines are repaired and refuelled. Next of kin were contacted for 592. All deaths under age 80 were classified as being in former nuclear or non-nuclear workers depending on information supplied by next of kin. With U.S. age-specific proportional cancer mortality for White males as a standard, the observed/ expected ratio of leukæmia deaths was 5·62 (6 observed, 1·1 expected) among the 146 former nuclear workers. For all cancer deaths, this ratio was 1·78. Among non-nuclear workers there was no statistically significant increase in proportional mortality from either leukæmia or from all cancers. The excess proportional leukæmia and cancer mortality among nuclear workers exceeds predictions based on previous data of radiation effects in man.
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