About the same percentage of workers has chronic bronchitis, and a similar number also have emphysema, he said, adding that some workers suffer from more than one of these ailments. Markowitz said he had not compiled statistics yet of cancer cases, but he had not seen a noticeably higher number of cancers than he would expect to see in a group this age. First, the workers screened asked to be tested, so they are not a representative sample of people from all types of jobs throughout the plant. Second, although former workers being tested have ranged in age from their mid40s to their mid-80s, the average age of those tested is between 60 and 70, meaning many of them have diseases that could occur in the normal course of aging. Third, the medical tests don't pick up leukemia or lymphoma, and a new, advanced lungcancer-screening program is only now about to begin.
Some cancers being found are incidental to the tests.
Some of that is related to their age, he said, when some hearing loss is expected. The Department of Energy, which owns the plants, has no involvement in the testing or the analysis of the results. Besides chronic lung diseases, the tests screen for kidney and liver ailments. Workers have not been tested for chronic beryllium disease, although DOE has con- firmed the presence of beryllium at Paducah. Markowitz said he expected to add such a test.