Possible Long-Term Health Effects of Short-Term Exposure To Chemical Agents, Volume 3 Final Report: Current Health Status of Test Subjects (1985) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
The Medical Follow-up Study
The Medical Follow-up Study
Pages 3-24
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 3... ...
It was not anticipated that any late effects would occur. In fact, two characteristics of the testing program make the demonstration of late effects extremely difficult: · Selection Bias: The volunteers received careful physical and mental screening examinations for contraindications to the planned tests.
|
From page 4... ...
One can therefore expect health problems more common to the later years of life to have occurred in a much higher proportion of men in the LSD tests than of men who received approved drugs, innocuous chemicals, or control substances, even if LSD and its derivatives do not promote such health problems. Because of the age differences, comparisons between groups were adjusted for current age.
|
From page 5... ...
Power calculations are shown in Tables 3 and 4 for comparison with two base line groups of participants: the NCT group, consisting of subjects who did not participate in any of the chemical tests (those exposed only to FDA-approved drugs or placebo substances and those who were exposed only to equipment) ; and the OCT group, consisting of subjects who were not exposed to a chemical of interest, but were exposed to other test chemicals.
|
From page 6... ...
, the intersection of the column representing the 10% base line risk and the row representing a 1% risk increase due to exposure contains the value 0.183, which signifies that there is an 18.3% chance of reporting a significant increase among exposed respondents. Table 4 is computed in the same manner as Table 3; however, the size of the OCT comparison group is not constant, but increases as the exposed group decreases, and by the same amount.
|
From page 7... ...
Louis Military Personnel Records Center, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (which can obtain current address information from the Internal Revenue Service on persons with occupational exposure to possible health risks) , and a commercial tracing agency.
|
From page 8... ...
The likelihood of obtaining an address for a volunteer was greatest for those who participated in the most recent tests and decreased as the time since test participation increased (Table 6~. Valid current addresses were obtained for 83% of living men involved in tests conducted in 1970 or later, compared with 81% of men who participated in 1960-1964.
|
From page 9... ...
The results of the interviews are discussed later. COMPARISON GROUPS The chemical tests were conducted by the Army for the sole purpose of studying immediate effects.
|
From page 10... ...
. Each computer table consists of several panels representing current age categories in 1984 (the survey year)
|
From page 11... ...
For example, assume that 10 of the respondents reported a particular disability, including 4 exposed subjects and 6 who were not exposed. The exact test provides the probability that the 10 reported events would include 4 or more exposed subjects (an excess as great as or greater than that observed)
|
From page 12... ...
Army hospital admission rates after test participation are shown separately for men exposed to a single class of chemicals (Table 11) and for men exposed to more than one class of chemicals at Edgewood (Table 12~; the two groups are mutually exclusive.
|
From page 13... ...
The medical conditions that might have resulted from exposures include malignant neoplasms; benign and unspecified neoplasms; -endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases; diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs; mental disorders; diseases of the nervous system and sense organs; and diseases of the circulatory system. Several of these groups of disorders are examined separately below.
|
From page 14... ...
Two counts of "expected" admissions are also shown: those based on the experience of participants exposed to chemicals other than the group being considered for a specific comparison, the OCT group; and those based on the NCT group experience. Seven volunteers were admitted to Army hospitals for malignant neoplasms during their posttest period of service, of whom three were NCT subjects and four were participants in chemical tests (Table 17~.
|
From page 15... ...
Half the men admitted to Army hospitals for diseases of the nervous system and sense organs were first admitted within 5 years of testing, whether they were in chemical-test groups or the NCT group. When the distributions of specific diagnoses are compared among the test groups, no consistent pattern is seen that suggests that any of them can be attributed to the testing program.
|
From page 16... ...
These percentages suggest that men who could be the most likely to have health problems were most likely to respond. If a response bias exists, ~ therefore, it is in the direction of overestimation of current health problems of the living volunteers.
|
From page 17... ...
There is no evidence that the men exposed to different chemical groups differed in their reasons for not responding, particularly where current health was concerned. Mail Survey Findings Age of Respondents.
|
From page 18... ...
However, a deficit in the number of male children born after testing did not disappear after the corrections. When the NOT group was used as the comparison group, the findings were similar, i.e., no significant overall fertility difference and the deficit in number of male births remained significant (see Appendix D)
|
From page 19... ...
There appears to be a decrease in male children born to the anticholinergic group. However, to evaluate the impact of an exposure on the sex of liveborn children, it is believed more appropriate to consider only the first child conceived by the volunteer after exposure, hereafter referred to as the first postexposure child.
|
From page 20... ...
But a review of the nature of the exposures of the volunteers exposed to irritants and vesicants and of a sample of NOT subjects who responded "yes" to this question clearly indicates that acute effects, mainly erythema and blistering during the immediate posttest period, were responsible for the difference. The irritants-vesicants class of chemicals produced no demonstrable excess of late effects.
|
From page 21... ...
Some 29% of respondents reported having been hospitalized during the preceding 5 years. The test volunteers as a group reported fewer hospital admissions than either comparison group.
|
From page 22... ...
reported having used LSD 10 or more times, compared with 1.2 subjects expected on the basis of the NCT group experience and 2.2 subjects expected on the basis of the OCT group experience. A few of the LSD-test subjects, therefore, appear to have continued to use LSD, inasmuch as no participant received more than four test exposures (or six test exposures, depending on the source of information)
|
From page 23... ...
However, there were only two reports of treatment for alcoholism, infrequent reports of drug use, and no unusual reports regarding employment, marital, and family status. There is no basis to infer above-average frequency or intensity of psychologic problems among these men.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.