Fwd: Re: [ RadSafe ] Differences in Background radiation and disease incidence, E Pochin had a paper in Health.Phys.

[parthasarathy k s]

I realized that the message may be of interest to the entire list as everyone is busy discussing epidemiolgical sutdies. 
  
  Regards
  K.S.Parthasarathy
parthasarathy k s <ksparth at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:  Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 05:34:41 +0000 (GMT)
From: parthasarathy k s <ksparth at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Differences in Background radiation and disease incidence, E Pochin had a paper in Health.Phys.
To: Eric D <edaxon at satx.rr.com>

E.Pochin  published a paper in the Health Physics Journal a few years ago. He  calculated the time of observation needed to identify excess cancer  rates in a population of about 100,000 living in the high backround  radiation area in Kerala, India.
  
  At an excessive dose of 10 mSv it may take as long as 7 to 146 years to  identify excess of leukaemia (this cancer, with minimum latency period  of about 10 years is the easiest to observe in the shortest possible  time). He used the currently known risk coefficient for the disease.  Using a similar argument one may be able to work back to get the risk  coefficient needed to find out excess cancer at different background  radiation levels. I do not have Pochin's paper with me now but I may  look for it and give the reference later. 
  
 The researchers  in the Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala measured the  back ground radiation levels and observed the  cancer incidence  rates in the high and low background radiation areas over a period of  five years. They did not find any difference (Radiation Research, 1999).
  
  K.S.Parthasarathy

Eric D <edaxon at satx.rr.com> wrote:  Has anyone addressed the problem of low dose effects by estimating how large
the radiation risk coefficient would need to be to have statistically
significant differences in disease rates between areas of differing
backgrounds?

I am not an epidemiologist nor well versed enough in statistics to do this
but a graph of the minimum risk coefficient required to show a difference
versus increase in background level would be interesting and shed light on
the debate.

Eric D. Daxon, PhD, CHP


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