Thomas Mancuso
{{Short description|American physician and scientist (1912–2004)}}
{{Use American English|date=October 2023}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2023}}
{{Infobox academic
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| name = Thomas Mancuso
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|mf=y|1912|2|19}}
| birth_place = New York City, US
| death_date = {{Death date and age|mf=y|2004|7|4|1912|2|19}}
| death_place = Oakland, California, US
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| occupation = Professor of occupational medicine
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| known_for = Long-term studies of effects of cancer-causing effects of several chemicals and low level radiation in industry
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| education = Creighton University
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| influences = Wilhelm Hueper
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| discipline = Industrial medicine
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| workplaces = {{plainlist|*Michigan State Department of Health (1942–1943)
- Oregon State Board of Health (1943–1945)
- Ohio Department of Health (1945–1962)
- University of Pittsburgh (1962–1982)}}
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Thomas F. Mancuso (February 19, 1912 – July 4, 2004) was an American epidemiologist and professor of occupational health at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Public Health between 1962 and 1982, known for conducting long-term studies of the cancer-causing effects of low-level radiation and several chemicals used in industry, including asbestos. He is credited for being the first to understand that beryllium and chromium could cause cancer.
During World War II, Mancuso co-founded organizations in public health, at health departments of Michigan and Oregon. After the war he headed the Department of Industrial Hygiene at the Ohio Department of Health. There, he produced the first American long-term mortality studies and showed how social security data could be used to understand deaths among factory workers.
Early life and education
Thomas Francis Mancuso was born in Kings County Hospital, Brooklyn, New York, on February 19, 1912.{{cite book |title=U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men |date=1940–1947 |publisher=National Archives at St. Louis |location=St. Louis}}{{cite journal |last1=Michaels |first1=David |title=In Memoriam: Thomas F. Mancuso, MD, MPH 1912-2004 |journal=American Journal of Industrial Medicine |date=January 2005 |volume=47 |issue=1 |pages=1–3 |doi=10.1002/ajim.20117 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajim.20117 |language=en |issn=0271-3586 |url-access=subscription |access-date=August 30, 2023 |archive-date=August 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230830145541/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajim.20117 |url-status=live }} He attended Creighton University in Omaha, from where he received his bachelor's degree followed by his medical degree from its medical school in 1937.{{cite news |last=McLellan |first=Dennis |title=Thomas F. Mancuso, 92; Studied Effects of Workplace Hazards |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-jul-11-me-mancuso11-story.html |url-status=live |work=Los Angeles Times |date=July 11, 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230902024033/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-jul-11-me-mancuso11-story.html |archive-date=September 2, 2023}}
Early career
=World War II=
During World War II, Mancuso co-founded organizations in public health. From 1942 to 1943, he was physician of industrial hygiene for the Michigan State Department of Health.{{cite book |last1=Mancuso |first1=Thomas F. |title=Help for the working wounded |date=1976 |publisher=[Washington : International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers] |page=Back cover |url=https://archive.org/details/helpforworkingwo00manc/page/n227/mode/2up}} He subsequently directed the Division of Industrial Medicine at the Oregon State Board of Health, and served it until 1945.
=Ohio Department of Health=
Between 1945 and 1962, Mancuso headed the Department of Industrial Hygiene at the Ohio Department of Health. There he was influenced by National Cancer Institute's Wilhelm Hueper, and produced the first American long-term mortality studies on occupational groups, using social security data.{{cite book |title=Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program |date=2007 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |isbn=978-0-16-078295-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ygsdIg-stw4C&pg=PA105 |language=en |pages=105–118 |access-date=August 30, 2023 |archive-date=August 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230830023224/https://books.google.com/books?id=ygsdIg-stw4C&pg=PA105 |url-status=live }}{{cite book |last=Alvarez |first=Robert |editor1-last=Quigley |editor1-first=Dianne |editor2-last=Lowman |editor2-first=Amy |editor3-last=Wing |editor3-first=Steve |title=Tortured Science: Health Studies, Ethics and Nuclear Weapons in the United States |date=2017 |publisher=Routledge |location=Abingdon, Oxon |isbn=978-0-89503-395-6 |pages=206–2010 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zjNBDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT206 |chapter=9. The risks of making nuclear weapons |language=en |access-date=August 30, 2023 |archive-date=August 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230830145542/https://books.google.com/books?id=zjNBDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT206 |url-status=live }} During his time at Ohio, he showed cancer-causing effects of several chemicals including aromatic amines, cadmium, hydrogen sulphide, manganese, and mercury.
One of his 1950s contracts, with the Philip Carey Manufacturing Company, was to study the occupational risk of asbestos.{{Cite book |last=Practice |first=United States Congress Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Administrative |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5vLVwEqKZgC&pg=PA101 |title=Government Observation of Safety and Health Standards: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Courts and Administrative Practice of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred First Congress, Second Session, on S. 464 ... February 20, 1990 |date=1990 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |language=en |access-date=September 4, 2023 |archive-date=September 4, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230904145810/https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5vLVwEqKZgC&pg=PA101 |url-status=live }} After reporting that asbestos was harmful to both employees and customers, his contract was terminated. As a result of his work, warning labels were added to asbestos insulation.{{cite journal |last=Tannen |first=Terrell |title=Thomas F Mancuso |journal=The Lancet |date=July 2004 |volume=364 |issue=9432 |pages=410 |doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(04)16749-4|doi-access=free|pmid=15290841 |s2cid=34336729 }}
Career at the University of Pittsburgh
In 1962 Mancuso joined the University of Pittsburgh's School of Public Health as research professor of occupational health, and remained there until his retirement in 1982.
=Hanford=
In 1964, the Division of Biology and medicine of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) asked Mancuso of the possibility of long-term effects of low levels of ionising radiation. The following year they granted him a five-year contract to investigate the effects of low-level radiation on half a million workers employed in a nuclear weapons plant. This he felt could only be done by long-term follow-up; by looking at old records and following the group of people through to death to find out what they died from. When in 1974 the AEC asked Mancuso to dispute findings that low-level radiation did not cause cancer, Mancuso refused, and his contract was later terminated.{{cite news |last1=Wald |first1=Matthew L. |title=T.F. Mancuso, who led radiation study, dies at 92 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/07/us/tf-mancuso-who-led-radiation-study-dies-at-92.html |access-date=August 30, 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=July 7, 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230830020728/https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/07/us/tf-mancuso-who-led-radiation-study-dies-at-92.html |archive-date=August 30, 2023|url-access=subscription}}{{cite journal |last1=Sterling |first1=Theodor D. |title=The Health Effects of Low-Dose Radiation on Atomic Workers: A Case Study of Employer-Directed Research |journal=International Journal of Health Services |date=1980 |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=37–46 |doi=10.2190/TEDB-E2YU-5CQQ-01NR |jstor=45130008 |pmid=7353934 |s2cid=40060178 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45130008 |issn=0020-7314|archive-date=September 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230902114437/https://www.jstor.org/stable/45130008 |url-status=live }} He took to independent research with epidemiologist Alice Stewart and mathematician George Kneale.{{cite book |editor1-last=Ness |editor1-first=A R. |editor2-last=Reynolds |editor2-first=L A |editor3-last=Tansey |editor3-first=E M. |title=Population-based research in South Wales : The MRC Pneumoconiosis Research Unit and the MRC Epidemiology Unit |date=2002 |publisher=Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. |location=London |isbn=978-085484-081-6 |page=136 |url=http://www.histmodbiomed.org/sites/default/files/44835.pdf |access-date=August 30, 2023 |archive-date=August 9, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220809061144/http://www.histmodbiomed.org/sites/default/files/44835.pdf |url-status=live }} In 1977 they revealed that Hanford Nuclear Weapons Plant employees were "dying of cancer from cumulative radiation exposures far below the standards established as safe".{{cite book |last1=Hacker |first1=Barton C. |title=Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947-1974 |date=1994 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=0-520-08323-7 |pages=259–280 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uKp3ridsHrYC&pg=PA260 |language=en |chapter=Epilogue: after the AEC 1975-1990 |access-date=August 30, 2023 |archive-date=August 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230830150230/https://books.google.com/books?id=uKp3ridsHrYC&pg=PA260 |url-status=live }}{{cite book |last1=Walker |first1=J. Samuel |title=Permissible Dose: A History of Radiation Protection in the Twentieth Century |date=2000 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=0-520-22328-4 |pages=91–128 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_vgkDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA94 |language=en |chapter=4. New controversies, new standards |access-date=August 30, 2023 |archive-date=August 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230830145541/https://books.google.com/books?id=_vgkDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA94 |url-status=live }} In response, in 2000 the US Government agreed to offer compensation to those affected.
=Beryllium=
In 1970, Mancuso published his study that concluded that beryllium-associated pneumonitis and bronchitis was related to subsequent development of lung cancer.{{cite book |last1=KE |first1=Qingdong |last2=Costa |first2=Max |last3=Kazantzis |first3=George |editor1-last=Nordberg |editor1-first=Monica |editor2-last=Nordberg |editor2-first=Gunnar F. |editor3-last=Fowler |editor3-first=Bruce A. |editor4-last=Friberg |editor4-first=Lars |title=Handbook on the Toxicology of Metals |date=2007 |publisher=Elsevier |location=Burlington |isbn=978-0-12-369413-3 |pages=188–189 |edition=3rd |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nKulgztuzL8C&pg=PA188 |language=en |chapter=10. 1. Carcinogenicity of metal compounds: principal metals showing carcinogenic effects. Berllyium |access-date=September 6, 2023 |archive-date=September 6, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230906035536/https://books.google.com/books?id=nKulgztuzL8C&pg=PA188 |url-status=live }}{{cite book |last1=Michaels |first1=David |author-link=David Michaels (epidemiologist) |title=Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health |date=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-530067-3 |pages=124–141 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J0P3IdSYO_MC&pg=PA124 |language=en |chapter=11. Defending the taxicab standard |access-date=September 5, 2023 |archive-date=September 5, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230905162150/https://books.google.com/books?id=J0P3IdSYO_MC&pg=PA124 |url-status=live }} This is generally considered the first recognition of a link between beryllium and cancer. Ten years later, he confirmed his findings in a follow-up study.
=Viscose=
In a 1972 paper, Mancuso had traced employment records from 1938 at the Industrial Rayon Corporation, to study neuropsychiatric effects of carbon disulfide, used in producing viscose.{{cite book |last1=Blanc |first1=Paul David |title=Fake Silk: The Lethal History of Viscose Rayon |date=2016 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=978-0-300-20466-7 |pages=185–186 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4c6ADQAAQBAJ&pg=PA185 |language=en |chapter=6. The heart of the matter |access-date=September 6, 2023 |archive-date=September 6, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230906035854/https://books.google.com/books?id=4c6ADQAAQBAJ&pg=PA185 |url-status=live }} He found a likely under-reporting of deaths by suicide, including one where the wife was murdered prior to suicide. Later, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health hired him to expand on the study to include the deaths from heart disease. The result was a long paper titled "Epidemiological study of workers employed in the viscose rayon industry". In it he demonstrated the risk from coronary heart disease among those employed in the rayon industry increased by 40% in those employed for more than ten years.
=International Association of Machinists=
In 1974 Mancuso was a consultant for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and gave its members advice on how to keep themselves safe from occupational hazards. This he did via questions and answers in the organization's newsletter, the Machinist. In 1976 he collated the previous two years of advice and published them in a book titled Help for the working wounded.{{cite web |last1=Taylor |first1=Michael |title=Dr. Thomas Mancuso, longtime advocate for workers' health |url=https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Dr-Thomas-Mancuso-longtime-advocate-for-2743089.php |publisher=SFGate |access-date=September 2, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230903054344/https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Dr-Thomas-Mancuso-longtime-advocate-for-2743089.php|archive-date=September 3, 2023 |language=English |date=July 9, 2004}}
Later life
Mancuso continued to investigate occupational hazards after his retirement. He is credited as the first to understand a link between chromium and cancer. His 1997 paper based on the follow-up of 332 chromate production workers hired at the same industrial plant from 1931 to 1993, concluded that all types of chromium were carcinogenic.{{cite book |last1=Santonen |first1=Tiina |title=Inorganic Chromium(III) Compounds |date=2009 |publisher=World Health Organization |isbn=978-92-4-153076-7 |pages=42–43 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yhmGSJlqqF8C&pg=PA42 |language=en |chapter=11. Effects evaluation |access-date=September 6, 2023 |archive-date=September 6, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230906041450/https://books.google.com/books?id=yhmGSJlqqF8C&pg=PA42 |url-status=live }}
Honors and awards
Death
Mancuso died from oesophageal cancer on July 4, 2004, in Oakland, California. He was survived by his wife Rafaella, two daughters and one son.
Selected publications
=Books=
- {{cite book |last1=Mancuso |first1=Thomas F. |title=Help for the working wounded |date=1976 |publisher=[Washington : International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers] |url=https://archive.org/details/helpforworkingwo00manc/page/n227/mode/2up}}
=Articles=
- {{cite journal |last1=Mancuso |first1=Thomas F. |last2=Coulter |first2=Elizabeth J. |title=Methodology in Industrial Health Studies: The Cohort Approach, with Special Reference to an Asbestos Company |journal=Archives of Environmental Health|date=February 1963 |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=210–226 |doi=10.1080/00039896.1963.10663384 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00039896.1963.10663384 |language=en |issn=0003-9896}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Mancuso |first1=Thomas F. |last2=El-Attar |first2=Anas A. |title=Cohort Study of Workers Exposed to Betanaphthylamine and Benzidine |journal=Journal of Occupational Medicine |date=1967 |volume=9 |issue=6 |pages=277–285 |jstor=45004216 |pmid=6026374 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45004216 |issn=0096-1736}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Mancuso |first1=T. F. |last2=Stewart |first2=A. |last3=Kneale |first3=G. |title=Radiation exposures of Hanford workers dying from cancer and other causes |journal=Health Physics |date=November 1977 |volume=33 |issue=5 |pages=369–385 |doi=10.1097/00004032-197711000-00002 |pmid=591314 |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/591314/ |issn=0017-9078}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Mancuso |first1=Thomas F. |title=Chromium as an industrial carcinogen: Part I |journal=American Journal of Industrial Medicine |date=February 1997 |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=129–139 |doi=10.1002/(SICI)1097-0274(199702)31:2<129::AID-AJIM1>3.0.CO;2-V |pmid=9028428 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0274(199702)31:2%3C129::AID-AJIM1%3E3.0.CO;2-V |language=en |issn=0271-3586}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Kneale |first1=G. W. |last2=Mancuso |first2=T. F. |last3=Stewart |first3=A. M. |title=Hanford radiation study III: a cohort study of the cancer risks from radiation to workers at Hanford (1944-77 deaths) by the method of regression models in life-tables. |journal=Occupational and Environmental Medicine |date=May 1, 1981 |volume=38 |issue=2 |pages=156–166 |doi=10.1136/oem.38.2.156 |pmid=7236541 |pmc=1008839 |s2cid=21772090 |url=https://oem.bmj.com/content/38/2/156.short |language=en |issn=1351-0711}}
References
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Category:Radiation health effects researchers
Category:American epidemiologists
Category:Creighton University alumni
Category:Cancer epidemiologists
Category:Occupational health practitioners
Category:Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Category:American people of Italian descent