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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 4, 1979)
s Refinery rate high for cancer THE BATTALION FRIDAY, MAY 4, 1*79 POK1 ARTHUR — Medical de tectives are planning further re search into a preliminary National Cancer Institute study that suggests there are abnormally high brsun, stomach and lung cancer rates at two big oil refineries. A spokesman for NCI at Bethesda, Md., said statistics suggest workers at Texaco Inc. and Cun Oil Corp. local facilities face unusually high cancer risks and that talks were under way to arrange studies with both companies. The preliminary report was based on statistical examination of 1947- 1977 records of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union and Texas death certificates, the spokesman said. NCI studied the records of 3,105 ' deceased workers and examined statistics for five plants with more than 100 deaths each. The apparent high rates at Gulf and Texaco emerged from the preliminary in quiry. At Texaco, researchers studied 475 white and non-white male death records and found five brain and central nervous system cancer deaths among whites with the union 10 years, a rate three times that ex pected for all deaths. The study also showed five stomach cancer deaths among non-whites, again three times the •expected rate for all deaths and twice that for deaths from all forms of cancer. At Gulf, researchers studied 413 death certificates and 13 lung cancer deaths among non-white workers, triple the rate expected for all deaths and twice the rate expected from all cancers. • Both companies expressed con cern but cautioned that the results were incomplete. “Texaco points out that the Na tional Cancer Institute study is not the final statement concerning fatal disease risk," said spokesman Larry Bingaman. "It is a preliminary or hypothesis-generating report and caution must be observed in inter preting the results of the analysis. " Gulfs Jim Catten said that “since the findings are preliminary and the sample size is small we are in agreement with the author that more in-depth studies are needed to evaluate the significance of the data.” Carson to * Grads to receive alumnus awards Texas A&M University will honor four of its graduates with Distinguished Alumnus awards at spring commence ment ceremonies today and Saturday. The honorees are from left: Robert H. Allen of Houston, Fred R. Brisen of College Station, Bill W. Clayton of Spring Lake and H.C. Heldenfels of Corpus Christi. Rural areas suffer as result Country doc is earing United Prvu fatfenudooai HOLLYWbOD — Jbhnny Car- son said it wasn’t so — at least not this year.-" "We’re going to be here for a while,” Carson said Wednesday night, reappearing as host of “The Tonight Show." He was absent for two weeks that were filled with re ports of a’struggle with NBC over his desire to quit two years before hfs contract expires, saying he is tired after 17 years in the job. Carson, who usually draws the raw material for his humorous open ing monologue from the headlines, made no exception for himself, re ferring to the present contract that requires him to work only three nights a week. "People have asked me a lot of questions; the same question keeps coming back. "Last night I was asked, "Can’t you do it more than three times a week?’ "And I said, Joanna, I’m taking the vitamin E, I’m trying the best I After a string of such jokes about hiiftself and the network, Carson ^ believed to be the most valua c single performer on television - got serious. - . j * “Originally, I had intended to leave at the end of our 17 th, y e * r > », which would have been Oct., 1, Carson said. “I intend to stay past thait time, he announced, drawing wild applause. United Press International HELENA, Mont. — Concern is growing over the disappearance of the country doctor from the. many- rural communities of the West. Physicians say he is becoming an endangered species. State medical associations in places like Montana. Idaho. Wyom ing and Nevada find themselves diagnosing the problem, and admit ting to no quick cure. While doctors are attracted to larger cities or, for example, to Western Montana’s scenic splendor, they tend to shun small, less- inviting communities. “It’s tough to practice in the boondocks," says Dr. James Cope, past president of the Montana Med ical Association. THE FORSYTH, Mont., physi cian, who established his practice in the Eastern Montana town 30 years ago following graduation from Western Reserve Medical School in his native Ohio, concedes that "this is not an ideal place.” “W'e have no skiing here, no shin ing mountains, no trout streams and very little recreation. Cope says. It’s hot in the summer, cold in the winter, r Eastern Montana is sparsely populated over a 70.000 square mile area. Even for the doctor who likes the countryside, he finds it hard to retain enough patients to support a practice in a region where the popu lation is so scattered. Cope and one other physician serve Forsyth, a town of fewer than 3,000 residents, not far from Col- strip, the hub of Montana's recent coal-boom area. There are no doc tors and no hospital in Colstrip, which now is larger than Forsyth. AS COPE NOTES, the problem is not numbers of physicians, of which the United States has no shortage. It's what he calls "maldis tribution." Dr. Robert St. John, president of the Montana Medical Association, uses the same term, adding, "We re actually looking at a physician ex cess.” St. John is a gynecologist- obstetrician in his hometown of Butte, in Western Montana, where the mountains, trout streams, ski ing, hunting and similar attractions apparently have helped to nearly double the number of physicians in that city in the past 10 years. Robert G. Smith, executive direc tor of the W’yoming State Medical Society, also points to what he calls the "distribution problem “Physicians are agoing to congre gate where they are needed and where they can practice their skills, specialists especially.” NEARLY 40 PERCENT of Wyoming’s doctors are located in Cheyenne and Casper, that state's largest cities. Smith says. Dr. Neil Swissman of Las Vegas, president of the Nevada State Med ical Association, says his group “for years has been active in promoting practice opportunities for physicians in rural communities. In Oregon, a report by Lee Lewis of the state Medical Association called attention to Oregon’s “livabil ity” as the primary reason for a growth in the statewide physician population. Lewis said it was "dif ficult to support the proposition that we have a great manpower short age, but she too mentioned “some problems with the distribution of medical manpower." DIRECTOR DONALD SOWER of the Idaho Medical Association says that while the association has been relatively successful in placing doctors in many of Idaho’s small immunities in recent years, that has not been the case in '‘remote areas." • “I don’t know if we’re ever going • to get them there," says Sower. Idaho has more than. 1,000 physi cians, but more than 200 are in the Boise area and nearly 400 others in and around Twin Falls. Idaho Falls, Pocatello and Coeur d’Alene. Of Montana’s estimated 1,000 doctors, -about 220 practice in Bil lings, and another 300 are in Great Falls and Missoula, the state’s three largest cities. 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