[ RadSafe ] Re: Differences in Background radiation anddisease incidence

[Bill]

stewart farber wrote:
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> I would like to suggest what I believe is a substantial defect in the 
> National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council,  Commission 
> on Life Sciences 1988 Report on the effects of radon on health [  
> "Health Risks of Radon and Other Internally Deposited Alpha-Emitters: 
> BEIR IV (1988)" ] which has been presented as contradicting so 
> strongly the ecological studies of Dr. Cohen which have suggested a 
> strong inverse relationship between elevated radon in air and lung 
> cancer.
Dr. Cohen's study did not attempt to determine the relationship between 
radon dose and lung cancer. Instead his study shows that the LNT theory 
does not predict the measured lung cancer rate and therefore must be 
wrong, at least for radon doses. As I first noticed when Dr. Cohen's 
paper first came out, one could link his low dose data with high dose 
miner results by assuming an appropriate effective dose threshold for 
lung cancer. The resulting curve would be an inverse relationship for 
low radon doses with a positive relationship for high radon doses. In 
order to draw this curve you would need each individual's lifetime dose 
and cancer incidence, data that Dr. Cohen's measurements can not provide.

Please disregard this message if Dr. Cohen is in disagreement with the 
above thoughts.