DISCLAIMER The following is a staff memorandum or other working document prepared for the members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. It should not be construed as representing the final conclusions of fact or interpretation of the issues. All staff memoranda are subject to revision based on further information and analysis. For conclusions and recommendations of the Advisory Committee, readers are advised to consult the Final Report to be published in 1995. TAB C-1 þþþDRAFT þ FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLYþþþ MEMORANDUM TO: Members of the Santa Fe Small Panel FROM: Advisory Committee Staff DATE: January 24, 1995 RE: Background on uranium mine studies At the Santa Fe small panel meeting, uranium miners and their representatives may testify. The uranium miners (of whom approximately 25% were members of the Navajo Tribe) worked in the mines located in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, and Wyoming. Uranium ore releases radon, which is a radioactive substance that can be inhaled or ingested by miners. Radon decay products (known as radon daughters) are also harmful to humans. Exposures to high levels of radon or radon daughters increases the incidence of fatal lung cancer and other respiratory diseases. Lung cancer from exposure to radon has a latency period of 8-10 years generally. The federal government, first the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and then the Public Health Service (PHS), began to take radon measurements in the mines in 1948 and also conducted a medical survey of the miners sponsored by the PHS, beginning in 1949 and continuing into the 1970's. The environmental phase of the PHS study was directed by Duncan Holaday. The medical survey was headed by Henry Doyle and Victor Archer, and other doctors from the PHS. As a result of the environmental findings, Duncan Holaday and the PHS asked the states and the mining companies to implement ventilation techniques to reduce the levels of radon in the mines. The states and the mining companies gradually improved ventilation and radon control measures in the mines through the beginning of the 1960's. However, significant improvement was not obvious until the early 1960's in many of the mines. The federal government did not regulate the radon levels in the mines until 1967: As many as 98 miners had died of lung cancer attributed to radon exposures by that time. The AEC owned land on the Colorado Plateau, which it leased to mine operators. The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Mines also had regulatory responsibility over the mines located on the Navajo Reservation because they were considered public lands. The Committee has been considering the uranium mine studies conducted by the PHS as one of a group of studies that we have called experiments of opportunity, where government researchers 1 or government-funded researchers gathered information on the radiobiological effects of continuing human exposures to ionizing radiation. As summarized in the following tabs, the uranium miners were the subject of a court case and Congressional legislation. A timeline prepared by staff is attached. 2 TIMELINE OF THE URANIUM MINERS' STORY Pre-war Background 1[N. Stannard, Radioactivity and Health: A History, Vol. 1: Laboratory Research (Battelle Memorial Institute DOE 1988), pp. 115-116] 1400 et seq."mysterious malady kills miners at early age in mountains around Schneeberg (Saxony) and Joachimstahl (Jachymov) in Sudetenland" 1879 "Identification of the malady in the Schneeberg mines as lung cancer." 1904 "Radon and daughters identified as part of the uranium series. Work with animals begins, especially in Russia and France" 1924 "Measurements of mine air begins. Correlations found between high radon areas and areas of high cancer incidence in the mines." 1926 "Government of Czechoslovakia finally agrees the malady at Joachimstahl (Jachymov) mines is lung cancer. Followed by detailed scientific reports in early 1930's." 1932 "Lung cancer in miners of Germany and Czechoslovakia designated a compensable occupational disease. 1941 "First standard for radon promulgated in US (10-11 Ci per liter)" in 1942 by Dr. Robley Evans' ad hoc committee which set a body burden for radium and radon air standards based on Dr. Evans' research on radium dial painters and radium therapy patients. 1942 W.C. Hueper publishes, in English, the seminal work related to the occupational hazards of uranium mining; the primary cause of several hundred lung cancers in European uranium mines was believed to be the radon in the mines.2 [W.C. Hueper, Occupational Tumors and Allied Diseases," (1942), chapter 4. See also Stannard's summary of the historical literature.] 3 Post-war Developments 1946 The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 makes the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) the sole purchaser of uranium ore. 1948 The uranium rush on the Colorado Plateau begins following the AEC's public announcement that it would purchase all uranium ore produced by US mines and uranium concentrate from US mills at specified prices.3 [The government publicly announced a uranium purchasing program in April of 1948, where the AEC guaranteed purchase of uranium ore produced by US mines and uranium concentrate from US mills at specified prices. The AEC purchase program provided incentives and bonuses for production of at least 20 tons of ore with at least 20 percent uranium oxide from a previously unknown deposit.] 1948 (July 7) The PHS Radiation Health Committee recommends initiation of a radiological health program, mentions a proposed industrial health survey in the Colorado Plateau uranium fields, and suggests establishing an office in Washington to act as a liaison with the AEC.4 [Memo to the Surgeon General from the Radiological Health Committee, July 7, 1948, re: Plan for Radiological Health Activities.] 1948 (July 19) Merril Eisenbud, head of the AEC's Health and Safety Laboratory (HASL) at the New York Operations Office (NYOO), tests uranium mines for air levels of radon and found extremely high levels (100 milliroentgens per hour). He reports these levels in Medical Survey of Colorado Raw Materials Area filed with the Colorado Area Office on July 19,1948.5 [Peter H. Eichstaedt, "If You Poison Us," (Red Crane Books Santa Fe 1994), chapter 5, p.13.] He also reports that adequate ventilation using available technology could reduce radon to safe levels. He suggests that the AEC could require mine o perators to install adequate ventilation and reduce radon levels through procurement contracts as the AEC had done to control worker exposure to beryllium. 1949 William Batie (who had originally requested the Eisenbud study) begins working with state health officials and the Public Health Service. In 1949, a state report notes high levels of radon and other hazardous conditions in the Colorado uranium mines. This report is leaked to the Denver Post. 4 1949 (June 11) The AEC's Advisory Committee for Biology and Medicine (ACBM), addresses the issue of radiation in the uranium mines. The ACBM creates tentative plans to have State Boards of Health monitor mines with technical assistance from the AEC 6 [Advisory Committee on Biology and Medicine (ACBM) minutes from the 17th meeting (Sept. 9-10, 1949).] 1949 (August) The Colorado Department of Health establishes an advisory panel of federal, state, and uranium industry officials, which would be responsible for the oversight of a comprehensive study of the uranium mines and mills. Also the Colorado DOH sends a formal request to PHS for survey assistance and funding. Henry Doyle, the head PHS official in Colorado begins sampling in the mines. Doyle recruits Duncan Holaday, also a PHS employee with radiation experience, to assist in the study. The PHS awarded $25,000 for the study, and Holaday moves to Salt Lake City to direct it. 7 [Eichstaedt, p. 60.] 1950-5132 samples of radon gas in 48 Colorado Plateau mines produce a median reading of 3100 micromicrocuries per liter, which is 310 times the established maximum allowable concentration that had been adopted by the National Bureau of Standards Committee on Radiation Protection of 10 micromicrocuries. The highest reading is over 80,000 micromicrocuries per liter. 8 [Id. In a PHS file, a 1951 memo marked "confidential" noted that the data from the German mines demonstrated that a median level of 1500 micromicrocuries of radon per liter in the mines coincided with a definite pathology of 1% per year lung carcinoma attack rate and 50-70 % of the workers' deaths from a primary cancer in the upper respiratory system. "Radiation Exposure in the United States -- Uranium Mining Industry" (1951).] In the radon gas environmental study, eight mills and 48 mines are tested for radon and dust for correlation with the health examinations.9 [Eichstaedt, p. 60; Progress report on the Health Study in the Uranium Mines and Mills, July 1950- December 1951(1950-1951 PHS Progress Report); Notes for report by Dr. Clark Cooper at Salt Lake City meeting, Dec. 1, 1953, re: Medical studies in the uranium mines and mills 1950-1953. ] 1951 (January 25) Representatives from the AEC, the PHS Division of Industrial Hygiene, and other branches of PHS convene to discuss in detail the radon concentrations discovered by the Division's study of the health hazards involved in the mining and milling industry.10 [Dr. Samuel Ingraham, Minutes of Meeting on Uranium Study (Feb. 20, 1951).] 5 1950-53 First period of PHS study. PHS doctors are sent to conduct basic health examinations of the uranium miners and the millers that they can locate.11 [From July to October 1950, the PHS gave over 700 workers exams that included measuring vital capacity, wax impressions of finger ridges, inspiratory and expiratory chest films, icteric index and analyses of blood and urine for uranium and vanadium. The PHS recorded uranium concentrations in the workers' urine samples with a median value for the mine workers of 2.5 micrograms per liter and the mill workers of 4.2 micrograms per liter. In 1951, red blood counts were done on every fourth man, and occasional analyses of urine for vanadium were made; in 1953, vital capacity, finger ridge impressions, and red blood counts were eliminated, but all urine was analyzed for uranium. In 1951, the PHS examined 460 workers. In sum, the examinations between 1950 and 1953 involved 634 miners and 715 mill workers for a total of 1,349 miners and millers and 64 controls. These examinations did not involve followups (except for about 70 repeat exams), but generally involved examinations of new groups of people. Exposure durations and exposure periods were calculated. 1950 - 1951 PHS Progress Report.] 1952 (April 14) The PHS recommends a 100 micromicrocurie per liter concentration for RaA and RaC' as a working level for the uranium mines. The PHS states that this level results in approximately 25 - 575 rem per year exposure, which is under the 2000 rem per year exposure that PHS believed would cause definite damage to the lung tissue.12 [Memo from D. Holaday to Lewis Cralley, Chairman of Technical Advisory Committee for the Uranium Study dated Feb. 25, 1952; Memo from Lewis Cralley to the members of the Advisory Committee for Ionizing Radiation Studies dated March 4, 1952; Memo from James Terrill to Lewis Cralley dated March 13, 1952.] PHS distributes its unpublished interim report on the hazards of uranium mines and mills in April 1952 to mining company officials, and federal and state government officials.13 [PHS Interim report distribution list.] 1952 (April) Briefing for AEC Commissioners on PHS Interim report by the Director of the AEC's Raw Materials Division. The radiation problem in the uranium mines of the Colorado Plateau "is being brought to the attention of the Commission because of our interest in safeguarding the health of those engaged in the uranium industry and because of the possibility that the report might become the basis for press and magazine stories which could adversely affect uranium production in this country and abroad."14 [Briefing to AEC on 1952 PHS Interim Report.] 6 1952 The AEC's Division of Biology and Medicine provides $25,000 for continued studies in the mines, and the AEC begins to survey its own leased mines. 15 [Newell Stannard, "Radioactivity and Health: A History, " (Battelle Memorial Institute DOE 1988), p. 149.] 1954 Second phase of PHS study is initiated: an epidemiological study in which work histories are taken and efforts to identify individual miners are made.16 [Deposition of D. Holaday, Barnson v. Foote Mineral Co. et al. taken on October 9, 1985, pp. 43-44.] During the summer of 1954, over 1,350 men from more than 250 mines are examined. 1954 The AEC proposes a pathology study of the miners to be conducted by Dr. Bernard Nebel, Assistant Chief (Industrial Health) Medical Branch, Division of Biology and Medicine.17 [Memo from Dr. Bernard Nebel to Files re: Colorado Plateau (January 15, 1954).] 1954 The AEC produces a public pamphlet called, "Control of Radon and Its Daughters in Mines by Ventilation," which discusses how to use ventilation to reduce the environmental hazards posed by uranium mines.18 [Eichstaedt, p. 71, referring to Howard E. Ayers, "Control of Radon and Its Daughters in Mines by Ventilation," March 15, 1954, Occupational Health Field Station USPHS (Salt Lake City, Utah) and the AEC, document AECU-2858, p. 4.] 1955 The US Bureau of Mines issues a circular on Kerr-McGee's operations in the Lukachukai Mountains of the Colorado Plateau, which discusses ventilation techniques, the PHS study, the limit of 100 micromicrocuries of radon gas per liter, and problems with radon in air and water.19 [Eichstaedt, p. 55, referring to Wilbert L. Dare, R.A. Lindblum, and J.H. Soule, "Uranium Mining on the Colorado Plateau," U.S. Bureau of Mines, Information Circular 7726 (Washington, D.C. September 1955).] 1955 The Seven States Uranium Mining Conference on Health Hazards addresses the issue of radon exposure in the uranium mines. 7 1955 The Industrial Commission of Utah promulgates a regulation that "mine air should not exceed 300 pCi/l of radon daughters (1 WL)in 1956." 20[Stannard, p. 143, citing a chronology of uranium mining health protection activities created by C.G. Stewart, revised as of January 4, 1971, received by Newell Stannard as a personal communication.] The State of Colorado sets a standard of 100 pCi/l for each of the alpha decay products. 21 [ Stannard, p. 150.] (These standards are roughly equivalent.) 1956 The AEC discloses its first results of ventilation surveys in the 35 AEC leased mines, which demonstrate levels of radon daughters at 2 to 18 times the one working level (WL) standard.22 [Stannard, p. 150, memo from Duncan Holaday to Charles Dunham (1957).] 1959 The PHS produces a public pamphlet designed to warn the miners of the risks. 1960 Duncan Holaday presents to the Governors of the mining states what he believes to be conclusive evidence of a correlation between uranium mining and lung cancer.23 [PHS Progress report on the Uranium Mine Study by Duncan Holaday. (January 1, 1965), p. 1.] 1961 Holaday presents this evidence to the mining companies.24 [1965 PHS Progress report, p.1.] 1963 Evidence is published in a paper for the International Atomic Energy Commission Symposium of Radiation Health and Safety in Uranium Mines.25 [PHS press release dated Aug. 26, 1963.] 1964 Twenty-five miners have died of lung cancer, with six other possible lung cancer deaths in the study group alone. Twenty -five other uranium miners have died from lung cancer who were not in the study group. Attention to the situation becomes more acute when 50-56 miners have died of lung cancer. 1967 Over 98 miners have succumbed to lung cancer.26 ["Radiation Exposure of Uranium Miners," Hearings before the Subcommittee on Research, Development and Radiation, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (May 1967) (1967 JCAE Hearing), p. 45.] 8 1967 Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz establishes a new 0.3 Working Level (WL)27 [A working level is a unit used to quantify how much exposure to radiation is experienced by a miner in a uranium mine. One WL is equivalent to approximately 300 pCi/l of radon daughters, or 100 pCi/l of radon. A working level applies only to alpha energy and is defined as "any combination of the short-lived decay products of radon in 1 liter of air that will result in the ultimate emission of 1.3 x 10(5) MeV of alpha-ray energy." Stannard, p. 143.] standard for radon (daughters) in the uranium mines that contract with the federal government. He establishes this standard under his authority in the public contracts provisions of the 1936 Walsh-Healey Act. 28 [Secretary Wirtz used his authority from the Walsh-Healey Act of 1936, which allowed him to regulate the health and safety of workers who are employed by companies whose goods are procured by the federal government to set the radon standard. 1967 JCAE Hearing, pp. 46-48.] Secretary Wirtz admits that it was apparent to him that the Federal Radiation Council ( FRC), a body created in 1959 to advise the President on s pecific radiation safety standards, would not agree on a recommendation for acceptable levels of radon in the uranium mines.29 [Secretary Wirtz testified that the basis for his standard of .3 WL is the "...widely held view that this represents the maximum level of radioactive material to which a person can be exposed without creating some appreciable increased hazard of lung cancer." 1967 JCAE Hearing, p. 49.] 9