A recently published study of 3,000 uranium processing workers in Port Hope, Canada, found their overall incidence of cancer was actually lower than that of the Canadian population at large.
The study involved men and women first employed between 1932 and 1980 in processing facilities that expose workers to radium, uranium ore dust and gamma-ray radiation. Researchers tracked their mortality and cancer incidence over 49- and 30-year periods, respectively, ending in 1999.
The study's abstract stated that, " Overall, workers had lower mortality and cancer incidence compared with the general Canadian population. … In one of the largest cohort studies of workers exposed to radium, uranium and gamma-ray doses, no significant radiation-associated risks were observed for any cancer site or cause of death."
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, that country's equivalent of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ordered the study by Lydia B. Zablotska of the University of California, San Francisco, Rachel S. D. Lane of the CNSC, and Stanley E. Frost of Frost & Frost Consultants. It was published Feb. 27 in BMJ (British Medical Journal) Open.
According to its website, Cameco currently employs about 400 people at its Port Hope uranium conversion facility, the only such plant in Canada. It produces uranium hexafluoride and is the only supplier of uranium dioxide for Candu heavy water reactors.