[ RadSafe ] Re: Radon and Lung Cancer

[Ruth Sponsler]

Hello all -

A note:

Another region of interest for comparisons is the
rural Midwest (the entire belt from the Dakotas to
Illinois and south to Texas), which is mostly flat and
has fewer socioeconomic/racial disparities than the
South.

An interesting comparison can be made using this map
of life expectancy (females)

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/organizations/bdu/usbodi/map2.gif

and maps of radon

http://eetd.lbl.gov/IEP/high-radon/frac4.htm

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~radon/
http://eetd.lbl.gov/IEP/high-radon/USgm.htm

http://www.epa.gov/iaq/radon/zonemap.html  

Note especially Iowa, southern Minnesota, and the
eastern Dakotas.  Contrast with Oklahoma and Texas.

~Ruth



--- Otto Raabe <ograabe at ucdavis.edu> wrote:

> At 08:36 AM 2/13/2007, Wesley wrote:
> >I would like to remind you of my paper in Health
> Physics (October 2003):
> >EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATIONS AMONG LUNG CANCER,
> RADON EXPOSURE AND ELEVATION
> >ABOVE SEA LEVEL - A REASSESSMENT OF COHEN'S COUNTY
> LEVEL RADON STUDY
> ****************************
> Dear Wes,
> 
> I believe that the cellular oxygen tension is about
> the same no matter what 
> altitude you reside. If you grow up at high altitude
> you will develop 
> bigger more efficient lungs, If you move to a higher
> altitude you will have 
> an increase in red-blood cell concentration. In any
> case, at the cellular 
> level there will be about the same biologically
> balanced oxygen tension. No 
> radiation effects are expected.
> 
> There is a general correlation between higher radon
> and altitude.  That is 
> somewhat of a coincidence.  There is also an inverse
> correlation between 
> latitude and oxygen concentration. A mathematical
> regression will treat 
> decreased oxygen and increased radon as somewhat
> mathematically correlated 
> even though they are not related, but decreased
> oxygen is not necessarily a 
> causative factor in this relationship. It is just a
> partial surrogate for 
> increased radon.
> 
> When Prof. Cohen evaluated just the former
> Confederate (southern) States 
> where there are few high altitude Counties, he got
> the same inverse 
> relationship as for the whole nation. Therefore, I
> concluded altitude is 
> not a directly important factor in the inverse radon
> -lung cancer relationship.
> 
> Otto
> 
> 
> **********************************************
> Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
> Center for Health & the Environment
> University of California
> One Shields Avenue
> Davis, CA 95616
> E-Mail: ograabe at ucdavis.edu
> Phone: (530) 752-7754   FAX: (530) 758-6140
> ***********************************************  
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