Hi,
    Unfortunately, death certificates are very far from adequate in
assessing the conditions present at the time of death, or at any time
before. Unless a person dies of "Leukemia" they will not be counted as being
in a leukemia group.
    If a tech with leukemia (for example) gets hit by a bus. The death
certificate will probably say head / neck trauma.
    Also there are many conditions caused by another that would be the cause
of death. High blood pressure causes heart disease and increases the chances
of kidney damage. So if one was to examine high blood pressure in techs,
even if the research included deaths by heart disease it would miss the
kidney disease.
    I think the research would be much more involved than this.
Amso Brooks

> What is needed is a registry of histotechnology workers that would track
> their medical histories, at least to the extent of obtaining and analyzing
> death certificates. The AMA does this for physicians, and useful data has
> been obtained that way - for example, excessive chronic myelocytic
le