Risk Assessment of Nitrated Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons

Nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (nitro-PAHs) constitute a group of substances formed during incomplete combustion. Sources include diesel vehicles, heating, smoking, certain types of food-processing, and incomplete combustion in general. 2-Nitrofluorene (NF) represents a model substance for the nitro-PAHs. An attempt has been made to estimate the lifetime human cancer risk due to background exposure to nitro-PAHs by two different models. The first model is based on genotoxic lesions produced by gamma-irradiation and the second model is based on an earlier published mega study (24,000 animals) on the carcinogenicity of the major metabolite of NF. Both models agreed well-representing a yearly human cancer risk in the range of 0.15–49 × 10⁻⁶ for an urban citizen. The weaknesses and strengths of the models are discussed.     

Limited relevance of the right not to know--reflections on a screening study

The right not to know personal health-related information has been included in prominent human rights documents and subsequently in national legislation since the middle of the 1990s. Apart from situations where another life is at stake, the right not to know has in these documents been formulated as if it should have precedence over other interests. This article argues against giving the right not to know such a prominent position. It does so by questioning the ethical relevance of the concept for both theoretical and empirical reasons. The main focus of the article is on empirical data from a prospective population screeningfor Type I diabetes. Data indicate that research participants are not as autonomous as is generally assumed by the defenders of the right not to know.     

Brother correlations in earnings in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden compared to the United States

The correlation in economic status among siblings is a useful “omnibus measure” of the overall impact of family and community factors on adult economic status. In this study we compare brother correlations in long-run (permanent) earnings between the United States, on one hand, and the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) on the other. Our base case results, based on very similar sample criteria and definitions for all countries, show that this correlation is above 0.40 in the United States and in the range 0.14–0.26 in the Nordic countries. Even though these results turn out to be somewhat sensitive to some assumptions that have to be made, we conclude that the family and community factors are more important determinants of long-run earnings in the United States than in the Nordic countries. Received: 27 July 2000/Accepted: 7 March 2001 All correspondence to: Anders Bj?rklund. Comments from two referees, conference participants at ESPE2000 and the Canadian Employment Research Forum, seminar participants in Aarhus, Uppsala, Bonn, and Stockholm are gratefully acknowledged. We thank NOS-S for financial support. The Swedish data collection was also supported by HSFR and SFR. The Finnish data were obtained with support from the Yrj? Jahnsson Foundation. We thank Tom Erik Aab? for preparing the Norwegian data, and Esben Agerbo for computational assistance with the Danish data. Responsible editor: John F. Ermisch.     

The Determinants and Some Consequences of Unemployed Workers' Wage Demands

This paper studies the determinants and consequences in the early stages of the hiring process of unemployed workers' wage demands using direct data on workers' wage requests. We show that most unemployed workers want a wage close to their previous wage, and thus much more than they get in unemployment benefits. However, some groups, such as women, tend to demand lower wages. Moreover, we find that workers with high wage demands are contacted by firms less often than otherwise similar workers with lower wage demands. Thus, our results suggest that too high wage demands may contribute to high unemployment.