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15 October 2002
Exposure to Polluted Water Increases Risk of Cancer in Naval
Divers
Study
Released Today in Environmental Health Perspectives Finds
Cancer Risk Increased as Pollutant Levels Increased
[RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC] A new study
published today in the science journal Environmental Health Perspectives
found that Israeli naval commando divers who trained in the heavily
polluted Kishon River had significantly higher incidence of many
kinds of cancers than would otherwise be expected.
The study evaluated trends in exposures to contaminants and risks
for cancer among 682 Israeli naval commando divers between 1948
and 2000, compared to rates among Israeli-born males in general.
The authors analyzed data from water samples taken over this period
and compared them to data on the health of both marine life and
divers. They calculated the estimated daily dose intake of toxicants
absorbed by the divers via skin and ingestion per kilogram of body
weight.
The average diver in the study spent 2,500 hours in underwater training
over 19 years, with over 2,000 of those hours coming in their first
four years of service. The Kishon River, its estuaries, and the
port of Haifa, where the river flows into the Mediterranean Sea,
were increasingly contaminated over the years studied, primarily
by discharge from an oil refinery, petrochemical and fertilizer
plants, and a sewage treatment plant. As the exposure to pollutants
increased, the rates of cancer incidence rose, and marine life was
more severely damaged.
Increased risks for cancer were associated with organ sites
having the highest contact with the water or in tissues with the
known affinities of many of the reported toxics in the water,
the authors conclude. Routes of exposure and associated cancers
included direct exposure via the skin (melanoma) and gastrointestinal
tract (stomach, bowel, and salivary gland cancers), inhalation of
heavy metals and volatile chemicals (lung), and absorption and deposition
of carcinogens in fat-soluble target tissues (blood-forming organs
and central nervous system).
The cancer risk increased dramatically with the time spent in the
water. The authors calculate that, averaged over the entire time
studied, the risk from one hour of diving in the heavily polluted
river was equal to that from smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.
The study was conducted by Elihu Richter, Lee Friedman, Yuval Tamir,
Tamar Berman, Or Levy, Jerome Westin, and Tamar Peretz of Hebrew
University-Hadassah in Jerusalem.
EHP is the journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health
Sciences, one of the National Institutes of Health within the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. More information is available
online at http://www.ehponline.org.
Editors note: A full copy of the report is available online
http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2003/5901/abstract.html,
by fax, or by e-mail (PDF format) to working media at no charge.
Go to http://www.ehponline.org/press,
or contact using the phone number listed or e-mail adams6@niehs.nih.gov.
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