Alice Stewart
Alice Stewart | |
---|---|
Born | 4 October 1906 Sheffield, England |
Died | 23 June 2002 Oxford, England | (aged 95)
Known for | social medicine effects of radiation on health |
Awards | Right Livelihood Award (1986) Ramazzini Award (1991) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | epidemiology |
Institutions | Oxford University Medical School |
Alice Mary Stewart, née Naish (4 October 1906 – 23 June 2002) was a British physician and
Early life
Stewart was born in
Epidemiological studies
The department of social and preventive medicine at Oxford was created in 1942, with Stewart as assistant head. In 1950 she succeeded as head of the unit, but to her disappointment she was not granted the title of "professor", as awarded to her predecessor, because by then the post was considered not to be of great importance.
Her most famous investigation came after her formal retirement, while an honorary member of the department of social medicine at the University of Birmingham.[4] Working with Professor Thomas Mancuso of the University of Pittsburgh she examined the sickness records of employees in the Hanford plutonium production plant, Washington state, and found a far higher incidence of radiation-induced ill health than was noted in official studies.[6] Sir Richard Doll, the epidemiologist respected for his work on smoking-related illnesses, attributed her anomalous findings to a "questionable" statistical analysis supplied by her assistant, George Kneale (who was aware of, but may have miscalculated, the unintentional "over-reporting" of cancer diagnoses in communities near to the works). Stewart herself acknowledged that her results were outside the range considered statistically significant.[7][8] Today, however, her account is valued as a response to the perceived bias in reports produced by the nuclear industry.[4][9]
In 1986, she was added to the roll of honour of the
Her biography by Gayle Greene, The Woman Who Knew Too Much, was first published in 1999.[13]
Selected publications
- Stewart, Alice (1948). "Pneumoconiosis of Coal-Miners: A Study of the Disease after Exposure to Dust Has Ceased". British Journal of Industrial Medicine. 5 (3): 120–140. JSTOR 27720706.
- Giles, D.; Hewitt, D.; Stewart, A.; Webb, J. (1 September 1956). "Malignant disease in childhood and diagnostic irradiation in utero". Lancet. 271 (6940): 447. PMID 13358242.
- Stewart, A.; Webb, J.; Hewitt, D. (28 June 1958). "A survey of childhood malignancies". British Medical Journal. 1 (5086): 1495–1508. PMID 13546604.
- Mancuso, T. F.; Stewart, A.; Kneale, G. (November 1977). "Radiation exposures of Hanford workers dying from cancer and other causes". Health Physics. 33 (5): 369–385. PMID 591314.
References
- ^ Carmel McCoubrey (4 July 2002). "Alice Stewart, 95; Linked X-Rays to Diseases". The New York Times. p. B 6. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
- ^ "Alice Stewart". The Right Livelihood Award. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
- ^ ISBN 978-0472053568.
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/76998. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Stewart, Alice M; J.W. Webb; B.D. Giles; D. Hewitt, 1956. "Preliminary Communication: Malignant Disease in Childhood and Diagnostic Irradiation In-Utero," Lancet, 1956, 2: 447.
- PMID 591314.
- S2CID 35987772.
[our] approach requires either much larger doses than were encountered in the Hanford study or a much larger data base
- ^ Martin, John (November 1980). "On cancer and radiation". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 36 (9). Chicago, IL: 59.
The 90 percent confidence interval is bounded by the range from 380 to 448 cancer deaths. Thus 442 deaths is not a statistically significant deviation from the average expectation.…Kneale and Stewart do not claim their results to be statistically significant
- PMID 7066239.
- ^ "Alice Stewart". Laureates. Right Livelihood Foundation. 2007. Archived from the original on 17 November 2008. Retrieved 6 June 2008.
- ^ Vines, Gail (28 July 1995). "A Nuclear Reactionary". Times Higher Education Supplement.
- ^ Staff writers (2003). "Background: the ECRR". European Committee on Radiation Risk. Retrieved 18 June 2009.
- ISSN 0007-0874.
Biography
- Greene, Gayle (2017). The Woman Who Knew Too Much — Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation (revised ed.). Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0472053568.
Obituaries
- Anthony Tucker, Guardian, Friday 28 June 2002. Alice Stewart: Pioneering woman scientist whose research into the dangers of x-rays and nuclear radiation shook the establishment. Published in Environment section.
- Carmel McCoubry, New York Times, Thursday 4 July 2002. Alice Stewart, 95; Linked X-Rays to Diseases. Published in Section B, page 8.
- Caroline Richmond, US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, 23 June 2002. Alice Mary Stewart.
- Bithell, John F (December 2002). "Obituary: Professor Alice Stewart". Journal of Radiological Protection. 22 (4): 425–8. S2CID 250773160.