[ RadSafe ] Radon: POWERFULLY associated with LESS lung cancer by B.Cohen

[Howard]

Brian,
Not all science takes political funds, and is more trustworthy.

Go to www.oregonstateoutrage.com and see how 3 Robinsons' NE degrees at OSU are blocked by a politician donating $27M of our money to OSU. Their scientist dad never accepted gov. money and nearly unseated Congressman DeFazio, while leading www.petitionproject.org -  first signed by Teller.

On Jun 16, 2011, at 10:30 AM, "Brian Riely" <brian.riely at gmail.com> wrote:

> Howard, you wrote, " Politics should follow science, not vice versa."
> 
> The problem is that politics funds science, not vice versa.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
> [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Howard
> Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 11:30 AM
> To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) MailingList
> Cc: <blc at pitt.edu>; The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics)
> MailingList
> Subject: [ RadSafe ] Radon: POWERFULLY associated with LESS lung cancer by
> B.Cohen
> 
> Chris, your "APPARENT inverse relationship between lung cancer mortality and
> average radon concentrations" (emphasis added), disqualifies you as a
> serious critic of this most powerful epidemiologic study.
> 
> I and many others have tried to torture out of Prof. Cohen (at meetings of
> Doctors for Disaster Preparedness and here, on line) a spurious "garbage in"
> explanation. Analyses assuming a hundred potential social skews results in
> the same: POWERFUL association in all stable USA
> county populations, with and without smoking and 100 other potential
> skewers.
> 
> I just took out of my wallet a cc of Cohen's graphs with bars of 95%
> significance used as points!
> The "corrected for smoking" graph seems identical to the total graph, bpth
> showing 
> mortality just 2/3 at the 4 Bq/meter-cubed level touted as dangerous, as at
> 1/4 that exposure.
> This is evidence for hormesis, not "apparent", but as definite as
> epidemiology can give.
> LNT seems disproven by this (all Cohen will claim).
> 
> Politics should follow science, not vice versa (I like this use of the word
> "vice").
> 
> Howard Long MD MPH Family Doctor and Epidemiologist
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jun 16, 2011, at 6:22 AM, "Chris Hofmeyr" <chris.hofmeyr at webmail.co.za>
> wrote:
> 
>> Dear Proff Raabe and Cohen, Radsafers,
>> 
>> Prof Cohen's US-wide county-based radon studies caused quite a stir since
> 1995,
>> mainly because of the apparent inverse relationship between lung cancer
>> mortality and average radon concentrations. However, Cohen's main
> conclusion
>> was that the result was at variance with the linear-no threshold (LNT)
> model.
>> My own analysis of the data sets for two periods kindly provided by Prof
> Cohen
>> showed adamantly that there was in fact NO indication of a dependence on
>> average radon concentration up to the maximum recorded. Such a finding
> would
>> concur with Raabe's model of protracted low-intensity exposure (HPJ, July
>> 2011).  Human lifespan is too short to show discernible lung cancer
> induction
>> from domestic radon concentrations in the USA. 
>> 
>> However, uncertainty remains with respect to the question of the apparent
>> inverse relationship in Cohen's data between lung cancer mortality rates
> and
>> average county radon concentration, which some people wanted to interpret
> as
>> proof of hormesis. Significantly, in a 2006 paper on cancer risk from low
> level
>> radiation, Cohen did not cite his own radon data in support of hormesis or
> even
>> rejection of LNT.  In Cohen's data average county radon concentration was
> to
>> some degree anti-correlated with smoking prevalence, thus explaining the
>> inverse relationship in the uncorrected (for smoking) data. The smoking
>> correction to the data was consequently important for the 'real'
> dependence
>> curve. Unfortunately it was not possible to analyse the correctness of the
>> smoking correction, nor associated uncertainties, but I became convinced
> that
>> Cohen was not able to correct the data adequately for smoking, possibly
>> resulting in the persistent apparent inverse dependence of the 'corrected'
>> data.
>> 
>> A stark illustration of the overwhelming importance of extraneous factors
> -
>> most probably smoking - is to compare the female lung cancer data sets
> 1970-79
>> with 1979-94. There was a mortality increase of almost a factor of 2,
> whereas
>> male lung cancer declined very slightly between the two data sets (during
>> 1970-79 it was about a factor of 5 higher than the female figure).
>> Regards.
>> Chris Hofmeyr
>> chris.hofmeyr at webmail.co.za
>> 
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