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Mitchell R. Zavon, MD, CIH

The author is with Agatha Corp, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Mitchell R. Zavon, MD, CIH, 4559 Trails Dr, Sarasota, FL 34232-3450 (e-mail: zavonm{at}cs.com).

"The History of Uranium Mining and the Navajo People" in the September issue of the Journal took me back some 50 years. I believe it was 1951 when I was in charge of medical fieldwork for the study of uranium workers on the Colorado Plateau. We spent a month in Monticello, Utah. During that time, using the small Monticello hospital as a base of operations, our team examined a group of some 90 Navajo miners who came from Monument Valley by open pickup truck. They left Monument Valley at 2 am to reach our facility by 9 am. Although most of the other miners on the plateau at that time were engaged in underground mining, the mine in which these men worked was an open-pit operation.

Our examinations required the help of an interpreter, because most, if not all, of the miners could not speak English. Our interpreter was a Navajo, a former Marine, one of those who acted in communications in the Pacific Theater during World War II. It was difficult to get thorough medical histories from the miners, because the Navajo language lacked the words we needed. For example, because there was no word in Navajo for pneumonia, a question as to whether a man had had pneumonia would take many minutes of description by the interpreter.

When I reported for duty in 1950, I asked about the objective of the study. I was told that it was to determine whether the deaths of miners in Joachimstal, Czechoslovakia, and Schneeberg, Germany, in the 15th and 16th centuries were caused by radiation or other causes, such as silicosis. In the face of this long-term objective of the studies, acute problems among the Navajo in Utah were being ignored. Typhoid was endemic in the area, and 6% of the miners from Monument Valley had open, cavitary tuberculosis. When I reported this to the medical director of the Indian Service on my return to Washington, he said he would do what he could; but he wasn’t very optimistic that he could do anything.

This Article Extract Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Zavon, M. R. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Zavon, M. R. Related Collections Occupational Health Native Americans