Occupational Cancers of the Lung in Radioactive Ore Miners in U.S.A.

The recently published data on the excessive liability of American radioactive ore miners to develop cancers of the lung are of distinct scientific and practical interest. The historical record of the studies leading to this discovery provides a deep insight into the astounding mentality of public health agencies toward such serious health hazards and of the peculiar policies adopted by them to cope with such threats from respiratory cancer hazards to special worker groups as well as to the general population. The information yielded by these investigations has reaffirmed even to the expediently and conveniently sceptic the unpleasant scientific fact that the prolonged inhalation of radioactive gases and dust induces under proper conditions of exposure cancers of the lung in an astonishingly high percentage of the exposed individuals. Because of the progressive contamination of the general human environment, including the air, with radioactive matter, although in much smaller concentrations than those encountered in American pitchblende mines and non-ferrous metal mines of the Colorado Plateau, these observations have distinct general implications.