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Home > Research > Wismut Uranium Miners Cohort Study
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Wismut Uranium Miners Cohort Study
The German uranium miners cohort study (Wismut cohort) is the largest single cohort study worldwide of miners exposed to radon and its progeny and is being conducted by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) for several years by now. The study comprises data on nearly 59,000 male miners who worked with the Wismut company in uranium mining in the former German Democratic Republic between 1946 and 1990. The second mortality follow-up has been finished and first results have been published. It is the aim to open this data set to the scientific community for further analyses.
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Cohort study – description and results
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Mining has a century old tradition in Saxony and Thuringia. In the southern region of the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge) mining yielded copper, nickel and tin, besides silver, cobalt and bismuth. After World War II, also the production and processing of uranium took place on a mayor scale. This occurred on orders of the soviet military administration who needed the uranium for its A bomb program.
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Opening of the Data Set; Call for Proposals
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The German uranium miners cohort study (Wismut cohort) is the largest single cohort study of miners exposed to radon and its progeny. Results of the second mortality follow-up have been published (Kreuzer et al., 2008; Kreuzer et al., 2009c; Walsh et al. 2010) and it is the aim to open this data set to the scientific community for further analyses.
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Specific results
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High occupational radon exposure may increase the risk of death from cancers of the extrathoracic airways. This is the result of a current evaluation of the German uranium miners' study of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS).
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Related Wismut Studies of the BfS
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Within the EU-alpha-risk project the French, Czech and German cohort studies on former uranium miners are investigated with respect to the cancer risk due to low radiation exposure. Moreover, organ doses for several organs and the corresponding risks are calculated.
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