Lung Cancer in a Fluorspar Mining Community: I. Radiation, Dust, and Mortality Experience

• Main Authors: Villiers, A. J. de, Windish, J. P.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1964
• Subjects: Articles; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1038330; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14142524

Since 1952 two to three deaths from primary cancer of the lung have occurred regularly each year among the male inhabitants of the small fluorspar mining community of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland. These constituted 23 of the 51 deaths that occurred during the 10-year period 1952-61 among employees with one or more years of underground mining experience. A shift to a younger average age at death from lung cancer and an association between age at entry into risk and age at death were observed. Comparisons between the mortality experience of the inhabitants of St. Lawrence, of a control community of comparable size in the same geographical region, and of the population of the rest of Newfoundland confirmed the probability of an occupational factor, the observed death rate from lung cancer being about 29 times the expected.