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ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION MEETING SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COM MIm OF THE HEALTH AXD MORTALITY My general impression is that the meeting, as a meeting of 811 Advisory Committee, was unproductive. One reason for failure was the confusion with regard t o the purpose of t h i s meeting. It was not u n t i l sometime during the afternoon that Dr. Mancuso explained the specific purpose of the meeting: workers whether the data available a t this time were of a type suitable for presentation a t the Iweting of the Health physics Society. t o advise him and his coDuring the morning session, the presentations were of a general nature on the history of the project and status and future expansion plans of the Hanford part of the study. What I consider strong criticism aimed i n general a t the nature and quality of data collection came from Dr. Alice Stewart. She compared the data @-s" and strongly urged perfecting of data quality and the introduction of refinements on the basis of need as demonstrated by results of data manipulation instead of attempting t o construct a perfect study. D r . Sanders' reply t o this was that preliminary Stewart questioned also the validity of some of the endpoints selected t o determine the health experience of AEC workers. The consensus was that cause of death and life-shortening were critical endpoints and that any "hidden delayed effects other than cancer (such as the one causing e a r l y withdrawal frcm the work force) were highly improbable." Dr. Elston also pointed out t o Dr. Sanders that he isnot looking a t mortality but tries t o determine when people i n the study die and questioned the value of sibling6 as a control.
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Dr. Elston discussed some of the statistical aspects of the presentations by Drs. Mancuso, Sanders and Brodsky. He presented 8ome calculations made t o determine the expected sensitivity of data manipulation with regard .to mortality and Life shortening and expressed the opinion that such calculations should have been made before the study u a s started and should have formed the basis f o r decisions on data collection, sample size and size of control little justification for some of the tests applied and urged many more analyses with "valid and more powerful t e s t s " (cost of data analysis is trivial compared t o collection costs). He also made the general statement that "before you see any data, ~ r o ubetter know you have some good methods t o analyze them." The remainder of the meeting was very uninspiring and concernea mainly a discussion of the suitability of presenting data at the members I got the irrrpression that they looked w i t h great favor on an expansion of the study t o cosmic proportions. I also had the impression that he could find very From some of the remarks made by the other committee In general terms, m e overall impression of t h e meeting was the inability of the investigators (Drs. Mancuso, Sanders and Brodsky) t o engage in meaningful i n depth discussions with their advisors and their obvious high degree of insecurity as t o what t o do with Medical Research Branch Division of Biology and Medicine